


i, robot | skz.

by reddawns



Category: Kpop - Fandom, Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: AU, Academy, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Comedy, Dystopian, High School, Miroh - Freeform, boys, clé 1: miroh, i am who, i am you, i robot - Freeform, kpop, skz - Freeform, stray kids - Freeform, yellow wood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2019-11-29 01:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddawns/pseuds/reddawns
Summary: A world in which teens are given the option to “mechanize” themselves before they dip their toes into the pool of adulthood. Here’s the catch—no one has the heart to tell them there’s been a glitch in the system, and now they have to figure out a way around it by themselves.





	1. miss peregrine's...

My school was strange.

For starters, it was called Seoul Independent Boys’ Academy, which sounded too artsy to be an education center. In it, none of the adults seemed to know what a contraction was, especially not the dean (“Deanette”), who wouldn’t even disclose her name to anyone under twenty-one years old so as to keep us mindful of her authority. I’m serious; these people dressed in perfectly tailored suits and wore their hair the same every day. They even threatened detention if you said something mildly playful in their presence. If I started behaving like the adults around here, I’d be dead meat to all my friends, which is part of why none of us want to grow up.

I don’t know whose idea it was to start such a sad, grey corporation in which teenagers like me were expected to bloom into something colorful. My parents, unfortunately, shared a different mindset, and lately they had been spending hour-long phone calls on confidential topics with my supervisors at the academy. Even on the nights I tried to eavesdrop, I couldn’t pick up anything juicy enough to tell my friends. All their discussions sounded like futurama-mumbo-jumbo nonsense.

“They said the word ‘mechanize’ like, what—twelve times?—in one sentence,” I complained to my right-hand man, Yang Jeongin. “I just don’t get it. Nothing in today’s universe needs to be mechanized, especially not at school. It’s practically ‘smart’ as it is.”

“Maybe it’s grown-up lingo for…” he considered, looking off to the left as if it helped him think harder. “I don’t know, taxes? Could they be talking about taxes with Deanette?”

“Doubtful,” I shrugged, swirling my carton of strawberry milk around like I was aerating it. It was almost empty.

Jeongin refocused, chewing on some noodles and waving his utensils around to make a stronger point: “Hey, where’s Chan at? I’ve been trying to reach him, but he won’t answer his phone.”

“Minho said he got busted at home for getting a thirty-six out of forty on that humanities exam two days ago,” I said, “but you know how Minho is—cheating his way through life.”

“Yo!” called a voice that was seemingly returning from the lunch line. Jeongin and I turned our heads in unison and discovered whose voice it was.

“Speak of the devil,” I grinned, patting the chair beside mine so that our friend Bang Chan would sit down by me. He looked as happy as ever despite supposedly losing his cellphone to bad grades.

He dropped his tray down so hard that all the items on it rolled out of their slots. A stick of celery fell onto the tabletop and he popped it into his mouth, still grinning like a ray of sunshine. “Hey, guys.”

“Should I even ask?” Jeongin chuckled, gesturing at Chan’s choice of clothing which I didn’t notice until a second too late. “This isn’t America, dude.”

“What, you don’t like it?” he asked, playing offended as he proudly showed off his Nirvana t-shirt.

“You don’t even listen to Nirvana,” Jeongin rolled his eyes. “Anyone in a pinstripe suit walks over here, and you’re in the office _stat._ ”

“Yeah, yeah—I like living on the edge. Is this food any good today?”

“I’ve been drinking milk this whole time ‘cause I don’t know what _that_ is,” I joked, pointing at a purplish vegetable-like substance collecting dust on my tray.

“Jeongin’s eating it though.”

“Jeongin would eat live cockroaches if he somehow outlived the nuclear apocalypse,” I reasoned, “and he would _like_ them, too.”

“Protein is good for you!” Jeongin cried, jumping to his own defense—like always—while shoveling spoonfuls of a smashed kiwi-strawberry mixture into his metal mouth. “Guys, this stuff is so good. Taste it.”

“I bet your mom didn’t have to tell you to eat your veggies when you were growing up.” Chan and I giggled at each other knowingly, enjoying the sensation of burning someone. It was nicer than it was mean, but we were just having fun.

“At least I’m gonna outlive the nuclear apocalypse,” Jeongin claimed proudly. He brought a helping of noodle soup up to his lips and hardly had the chance to blow on it before the lights in the cafeteria shut off in two flickers. Chan instinctively grabbed the nearest thing to him, which happened to be a chopstick, and I bit the inside of my cheeks to avoid laughing too loudly at his frightened reflexes. The lights turned on again, and I realized it was only a gag to gather the room’s attention.

“You know, they need to stop doing that to us unannounced,” Jeongin complained, finally putting down his utensils. Chan returned his singular chopstick to its little trough on his metal tray, nodding in agreement. “There are people here with epilepsy! One more flicker and someone could’ve had a seizure.”

“Take it up with the officials, not us,” I said and rolled my eyes. Then a voice resonated throughout the room.

“Hello, all,” said the Dean Whose Name Shall Not Be Known. “Pardon me for the interruption. I am here to announce a mandatory assembly today after lunch period, so please do not leave the cafeteria prematurely. I apologize for the late notice.”

“God,” Chan groaned. Kids at other tables started making the same brute noises, forming somewhat of a pandemonium. “The last mandatory assembly was about that diet they put us on. Wonder what they’ve cooked up for us now.”

Lunch had only just begun and the prison guards were already in our business. A man I immediately identified as the dean’s highest supervisor, Mr. Jeon, strolled past all the tables on this half of the cafeteria, his hands clasped taut behind his back; it created visible strains on his too-perfect suit, as if it were modified to only look good when he had his arms at his sides—a suit which I could’ve sworn he wore the day before and the one before that, too. Chan was fully unaware of this guy’s presence, which was problematic due to the bright yellow smiley face on his shirt, but I wasn’t about to rid him of the embarrassment of chastisement.

Mr. Jeon came whizzing by, his glasses slowly but surely falling off of his too-narrow face. I covered my mouth with my milk carton as I mumbled things about him that not even Chan could interpret sitting right next to me; when the dreadful man looped back around to look at all the students one more time, he flashed our table an unimpressed look.

“S.O.S,” Chan chanted under his breath. Jeongin and I pretended not to hear him. “Come on, one of you gimme your blazer!”

“Do you hear something?” Jeongin asked, tilting his head to the side. I shrugged dramatically as Mr. Jeon approached, wearing the same disgusted facial expression as before.

“This is a private school, gentlemen,” Mr. Jeon informed us, his eye twitching extra hard each time it landed on Chan’s face. “I am disappointed that you two have not counseled your friend here on his school-inappropriate attire.”

“Sorry, Mr. Jeon.” Chan hung his head and I minded my own business—well, I eavesdropped too, but Chan got what he had coming to him.

“Follow me to the office this instant to take care of your situation,” Mr. Jeon hummed like he was following a script. I half expected him to lean in and whisper that he was just doing his job, but the coldness of his heart shone through and remained true. “Come along, young man.”

Chan stood up accordingly and eyed his tray longingly, waving at Jeongin and I as we snickered at him. What a grand departure.

“Poor guy,” Jeongin sighed. I poked at the meat on my plate but made no efforts to actually consume it. “Just wanted to smell like teen spirit.”

“Why do you know so much about Nirvana?” I asked, shaking my head. “You listen to R&B.”

“I like exploring American music” was his best answer. He pulled Chan’s tray to his side of the table and picked things off of it in order of temperature, hottest first. “Looks like we have another visitor.”

“Ugh, who now?” I asked, peering around the room for other adults in slim suits but only finding a friend of ours coming our way. “Oh. You know, you could’ve worded that differently."

“Who cares?” Jeongin retorted, stirring Chan’s soup and lifting the bowl off the tray. “Hey, Jisung.”

“What just happened to Chan?” Jisung asked in lieu of a proper greeting, chuckling through his smile.

“Nice to see you, too, man.”

“He got dress coded by Mr. Jeon,” I explained. “Come sit.”

“I’m surprised Mr. Jeon hasn’t dress coded me for wearing my tie too loose,” Jisung teased, eyeing the direction Mr. Jeon lugged Chan away in. I nodded in agreement.

“How much tighter can it get? It’s a clip-on,” I taunted.

“Shut up. Dude, you’re not eating.”

I gave him a look. “That’s ‘cause I trust this food as much as I trust the administrators here.”

“Shh! You never know when Deanette has her hearing aid turned up all the way!” Jisung cried sarcastically, making his eyes big for theatrics. I laughed at his expression and faux worry; meanwhile, Jeongin was too involved with his food affair to have acknowledged the joke. “Jeongin, you pig.”

“I know, right?” I added. “I wish I had his stomach.”

“This’ll come back to bite me in the ass one day,” Jeongin noted, yet he continued to finish off Chan’s meal. “I just know it.”

“That’s some scrumptious fruit mush, huh?” Jisung smirked, hiding his toothy grin behind his hand as we ogled at Jeongin’s inhuman tolerance for cafeteria food. (You’d think we were served god-tier lunches, given the prestigious name behind Seoul Independent Boys’ Academy, but in reality it’s gourmet garbage.)

Jisung left the table a few minutes later and was replaced by our good pathological liar friend, Lee Minho. The reason we never sat together all at once was that our friend group had a reputation with the officials; the other students loved us, but because of that, we had to pay. To be fair, how do you expect us to present ourselves when one of us has the guts to “forget” his school uniform and another one lies about how long he brushed his teeth that morning? Deanette—a nickname Jisung coined within the first two hours of school after profiling the monotonous woman who dictates us—decided to separate us at lunch so that only three of the nine of us could sit together at once. It was supposed to reduce our productivity as a clan of clowns, but personally I don’t think it worked very well. Jeongin and I almost always sat beside each other, not just because we were close but also because we had the same day schedule. Felix and Changbin liked sitting together, as well as Jisung and Minho, but we never ever complained when our typical sitting arrangements were mixed up. Unless it was someone from outside of the nonagon because then, there were problems.

Minho tried telling us his cat brought in three rats last night, and when we played along, he added that one of them had rabies. Jeongin proceeded to jerk and spasm as if the mention of rabies had somehow affected him. I was in fits of laughter.

“I guess it was true what you said about Chan,” I reflected. “He usually gets rebellious _after_ getting in trouble. Man never learns.”

“What’s so rebellious about wearing a t-shirt instead of a button up?” Minho scoffed. “Sure, I get there’s a dress regulation here, but I call bull—”

“This sucks!” cried Chan suddenly from behind me. Minho and I whirled around to see him in his fancy shmancy office-issued sweater vest. Whether the administrators genuinely thought the vest was attractive or they just used it as punishment for rule breakers was a common topic of debate here. “Move over, Minho.

“Move your feet, you lose your seat. Rules are rules.”

“Jeongin, you ate my food!” Chan said, forgetting that he couldn’t sit here anymore.

“It’s not like you were going to,” Jeongin said. That was true.

“You’re the only one I can trust these days,” Chan shook his head, looking me in the eye. I smiled proudly and sat up straight, adjusting my blazer so it hugged me nicer. “I’ll be over with Jisung and Seungmin. Bye, guys.”

“He’s in a mood,” Minho grumbled. _Do you blame him? Mr. Jeon_ drills _you._

Time slipped by quicker than we anticipated. While Jeongin was fulfilling his dare of chugging chocolate-milk-beef-stock soup, Deanette click-clacked to the center of the cafeteria, probably because she was too lazy to shepherd us into the auditorium. She awaited our silence with a microphone at her lips, catching the sounds of her exhalations. She sounded like an air purifier that needed its filter replaced.

“Thank you for your time once again, boys.” Boys who? Still no one was paying attention. Everyone was just relieved that seventh period would be ten minutes shorter. “Over the next couple of weeks, we will be bringing forth a program entitled ‘Mechanize Me.’ My _independent_ helpers are handing out informational packets that will require a parent or guardian’s signature to ensure that you know what the program offers. This is mainly directed at our juniors seniors, but underclassmen are welcome to participate.”

I looked at Jeongin and Minho—we were all seniors except Jeongin, who was in advanced placement and would graduate early—and we exchanged confused looks as a pile of six or seven brochures plopped noisily onto the center of our table.

She continued even though no one wanted her to: “Please read it thoroughly. I have had several one-on-one conversations with some of your parents regarding ‘Mechanize Me,’ so they should know what to expect. Do not be afraid to ask questions. In fact, I encourage it!

“Remember not to read the packets during lessons unless otherwise instructed. Dismissed.”  
  
So my ears weren’t playing tricks on me after all. _“Mechanize Me.”_

-

"[time tick](https://youtu.be/nJmory2GbyI)" by tessa thompson


	2. bright lights bigger city

I typically spent weekends with my friends. Homework was reserved for Sunday evenings, but my parents didn’t need to know that I didn’t do it on Fridays; my little secret was what allowed me to be a part of the nonagon outside of school because my sucky mom and dad didn’t let me hang out on most weekdays.

It was finally Friday. Deanette passed out the “Mechanize Me” leaflets during yesterday’s lunch period, and my parents had been stressing and obsessing over it ever since I slid it over to them from across the dinner table. I couldn’t have cared less what sorts of extracurriculars Deanette _wanted_ all her juniors and seniors to partake in, but my parents were antsy. It was like the war was on or something—and we were on the brink of losing.

I was sitting around in my natural habitat: with Jeongin and the other seven of us. School had let out hours ago and we were all crammed into Felix’s clown car of a bedroom, simply because his parents were the most lenient with friends and rules and the like. My parents were all right too, minus the weekly house arrest, but they were like librarians in that they were allergic to any volume above normal frequency. It was only when they weren’t home when I could have the guys over.

“Have you guys read Deanette’s little flyer yet?” Jisung asked, shaking his head with his eyebrows almost touching due to frustration about it. She had put out so many different advertisements that I wasn’t sure which one Jisung was referring to. “It’s really suspicious.”

“How so?” Woojin, the most academically and athletically involved ninth, asked, simultaneously losing to me at a game of chopsticks. He got up from crouching in front of me and sat beside Jisung.

“There’s not a single word that clues you in on what the hell ‘Mechanize Me’ actually is,” Jisung said.

“Actually, I noticed that too,” Seungmin chimed in. “It’s like they want the parents to sign us up without us knowing. Deanette really underestimates our intelligence, huh?”

“We have Chan to blame for that,” I joked, nudging him on the shoulder and earning a wet willy in return. He and I were sitting on pillows on the floor with our backs leaning against the side of Felix’s bed for lack of any spare seats. “Well whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t hurt. You know, it's against the academy's code of conduct to use corporal punishment.”

“Why do you know that?”

“I got bored in calc and read it somewhere.”

“Should I even bother asking my mom what it means?” Jisung asked, interrupting my little sidebar. “She probably wouldn’t budge if I asked what Deanette has told her.”

“True.”

I leaned my head back and snatched the flier out of Jisung’s hands since he was sitting on the bed right behind me. Skimming over the text, I sensed a trend: for every noun, there were twelve hundred thousand adjectives of only slight relevance. Jisung and Seungmin were onto something.

“I dare someone to email Deanette and ask about it. _In fact, I encourage it!_ ” I said, using a mock female voice for that last part. Chan and a few of the others chuckled at my phrasing, but Felix held up his finger and shooed Minho off his office chair.

“I will,” Felix announced, sitting down on the spinning blue chair and typing vigorously. “You guys have successfully made me curious.”

“How much do you wanna bet it’s some exercise program that everyone’s gonna have to do because she asked our moms nicely?” Jeongin popped in, his eyes rolling at the thought. I snorted. “Seriously! She already put us on a sugar-free, low-fat diet! She looks like she went through bootcamp and is ready to pass the torch!”

“Well, you know what they say,” Jisung started, sighing heavily and planting his hand on Jeongin’s shoulder. “Shove the torch in her face so she melts like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“It’s a Czech proverb,” Minho added, pointing his finger in the air to look matter-of-factly. I couldn’t tell if he was putting the cherry on top or if he was just trying to fool us, but I laughed at him anyway.

“She answered,” Felix interrupted. Changbin and Seungmin stood up to read over his shoulder.

“That was crazy fast,” Changbin said. “I bet she uses bots to answer emails.”

“Read it, woman!” Chan ordered from his spot on the floor, clapping his hands in a “chop, chop!” manner.

“Okay, okay!” said Felix, swatting Seungmin’s hand off his mouse. “It says… _Hi, Felix. Thank you for your question regarding the newly adopted ‘Mechanize Me’ program. As of now, some of the program’s specialties will remain a surprise for the student body to discover itself—but to answer you more directly, it is an opportunity for students to dip their toes in the pool of adulthood through a virtual scope that is more understandable to them than the hard-copy way that your superiors grew up on. Have a good evening!—This email exchange is under supervision from Seoul Independent Boys’ Academy’s technical advisors._ ”

“Can you repeat that in Korean please?” Jeongin sassed. I nodded even though Felix’s back was turned to me and he couldn’t see.

“It’s probably automated,” Felix groaned, shutting his laptop and spinning around to look at the rest of us. “I know she has the technology to make it sound personal.”

“Nerd,” Changbin scoffed.

“He’s right though,” Jisung sighed, resting his head on his fist. “She and her robot minions still didn’t clarify anything.”

“What the hell is a ‘virtual scope’ anyway?” I asked.

“Maybe she’s like our dads telling us to get off our phones ‘cause they make us brain dead,” Woojin suggested, and I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. “Seriously. They want us to apply for universities online, get jobs online, and talk to real-world people online because they think that’s all we know how to do.”

“You tell ‘em,” Chan said, pumping his fist in the air to rally him up. He just chuckled.

“I guess it’s not a half bad idea on their part,” I admitted.

“That’s only if you’re anywhere near the truth,” Felix reminded everyone. “She was scarily unclear in that email, the assembly, and in the brochures.” He counted off the times she was vague on his thumb and two fingers.

“Well, yeah, but we can only assume.”

Minho turned to me. “You should never assume!”

“Why’s that?” I asked. “Did someone you know die tragically the last time you assumed something?”

“No, dimwit. My mom tells me not to jump to conclusions.”

“Ah. I forgot you were a mama’s boy.”

“Hyunjin just double-roasted you,” Changbin laughed, sitting on the edge of Felix’s desk and pulling the brim of his hat down low like Steve from “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Minho rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut it.”

“Guys, I feel like we’re solving a mystery,” Seungmin said all of a sudden, walking to the center of the room and circling slowly to make eye contact with each of us. “I dunno. It just feels way deeper than ‘our headmaster is the queen of subtlety and robots.’”

“I’m with you on that one,” Woojin said. I felt a little childish for agreeing, but at the same time, there were far worse things on my record that I felt childish about. Soon everyone was nodding and I felt less standalone.

“Should we make something of it?” Chan asked, looking at everyone individually to read their expressions in case someone was too shy to speak.

“Like?”

Chan stood up and sat back down, this time on the bed beside Jisung, so I grabbed his pillow and stuffed it under the one I was already sitting on because it was becoming painfully flat. “I don’t know. We could tell people at school what we think.”

“You don’t think we’d get in trouble again for spreading rumors?” Jeongin considered warily. He had the ball of a lollipop in his mouth, the saliva-covered stick having been yanked off and thrown into the depths of Felix’s shag carpet.

“Mysteries aren’t rumors, you childhood thief!” Jisung teased.

“Let’s do it then,” Chan said, fanning his arms out to recruit us. “Only I can’t be in charge of the social media committee ‘cause I got my phone taken away.”

“See? Told you I wasn’t lying about that,” Minho said, pointing at Changbin and me. “But why would we have a social media committee?”

“To get people’s attention! Duh,” Chan offered. “If we want people at school to know about it _without_ making a scene that’ll land us in Deanette’s dungeon, we should put it on someone’s story.”

“Okay, who has the most people added on Snapchat?” Woojin asked, and everyone raised their hands.

“Let’s just all post it,” Chan said. “Well, except for me…” _We get it, Chan._

“I can make a PSA the size of our phone screens,” Felix suggested, brows raised hopefully. “You know, so we’re not the only people who think it’s a big deal.”

“Get working then,” Chan grinned.

“Yeah. Send it to all of us, too.”

“On it.” He whirled around once more and reopened his laptop, getting busy with an infographic website he seemed to have on his bookmarks bar. (This is why we called him a nerd as often as we could. King of the Nerds, if you will.)

A soft knock sounded on Felix’s thick wooden door and all of us turned our heads, expecting him to get up and answer it, but he was too engulfed in his graphic designing to have heard the rapping. Seungmin, the next closest to the door, pulled it open and revealed Felix’s little sister, Olivia.

“Hi,” she said. Felix finally turned around and pushed Seungmin out of the way to see her. “Mom wants to know if you guys want snacks.”

“You guys need snacks?” he asked, peering over his shoulder. Jeongin shoved Jisung and Chan aside as if he were parting the seas and raised his hand so fast it smacked the cord on the ceiling fan.

“Yes, please!” he cried. I put my arm up so as to keep Chan from falling off the bed; Jeongin underestimated his strength when there was food mentioned.

“God, Jeongin!” Chan complained, his eyeball mere inches away from the corner of Felix’s nightstand. “You better gimme half your snack.”

“For why?” Jeongin asked in a mock apologetic tone.

“For being glad I can still see out my left eye!”

“Thanks, Liv,” Felix said, out-voluming Chan and Jeongin’s little argument, as the small girl turned and skipped down the staircase. “Chill out, you guys.”

“Yeah, Chan.”

“Shut up.”

I stood up off my pillows and fluffed them up again, stretching out my arms in the process. It was only seven-thirty, but I was worn out from sitting in place for three hours. We really didn’t do much on some days except for talk, which I was completely fine with, but I would have liked to go for a walk or something.

“I’m gonna pee,” I announced. “Nobody take my pillows, or you’re dead.”

When I exited the room and pulled the door shut, Minho audibly shouted, “Take his pillows!” and I rolled my eyes the whole way to the bathroom. Felix’s house wasn’t small, but it was crowded; I blamed this on the size of his family. He had two sisters and a bunch of pets that needed their own rooms apparently. His parents were lodged two rooms to the left from Felix’s bedroom with Olivia’s room separating them. Across from Felix’s room was the staircase leading downstairs, then an office and a playroom for the pets. Felix’s oldest sister Jisue—who I’ve only ever heard Felix refer to as Rachel—lived in the basement with her little pug, Mojo. At the very end of the hall with all these bedrooms was a spacious bathroom with natural light, something I wished the whole hallway had since it was so dark and yellow-toned. I shuffled toward my destination and stopped short when I heard a familiar word float out of Felix’s parents’ room.

Soon Olivia was coming back up the steps, so I hurried into the bathroom and shut the door, hoping she wouldn’t see me hesitating next to her mom and dad’s room. I pressed my ear against the door and then the wall, trying to find a spot where I could eavesdrop better.

They were talking about “Mechanize Me.” Gradually, their words formed sentences that I could hear perfectly.

Mrs. Lee said, “ _I don’t know if I want my Felix to get involved with this._ ”

“ _But there’s only one way to find out what Dr. Min intends with the program,_ ” argued Felix’s dad. Who the hell was Dr. Min?

“ _What if the girls’ academy doesn’t offer this same program by the time Olivia enrolls? Would she think it’s unfair?_ ” That Mrs. Lee was always so considerate.

“ _I don’t know, but I’m telling you we should allow Felix to participate. It can’t be dangerous._ ”

“ _Dr. Min doesn’t know the severity of this cause, though. She has no kids of her own, just the ones she bosses around at that damned prison of a high school. And his allergies_ —”

I decided I had heard enough and relieved my urge to urinate all over the wall, then scurried back to Felix’s room with my face chalk-white and my hands sweating ever so slightly even though I just washed them. I shouldn’t have been so nervous in the first place; it was my idea to listen to that conversation. I just didn’t know what to make of it.

At first, no one acknowledged me standing there like a kid who just witnessed murder. Jisung, Minho, and Seungmin were rationing out the tray of little delicacies Olivia brought up for us to share, Felix and Changbin were watching a YouTube video on that clunky old laptop, and everyone else was lounging out as they were before I left to pee. Then, Changbin looked up from the video and stared at me for a good five seconds before realizing something was up.

“Yo,” he called, snapping his fingers to get me to look at him specifically. “Who died?”

“No one,” I shook my head, loosening up a little and returning to my post on the pillows. “I overheard a conversation Felix’s parents were having.”

“Don’t tell me you stalked my mom and dad,” Felix cringed, spinning around with his brows drawn together expectantly. I shook my head.

“No, I just heard them while I was in the bathroom,” I said. “They were talking about ‘Mechanize Me.’”

“Ooh,” said Chan all of a sudden, interested in the conversation. “Everyone, shut up!”

“Thanks,” I sighed. “Felix, your mom said she doesn’t want you to do it, but I think your dad is gonna make you. And your mom is worried they won’t use the program at the girls’ school, just ours.”

“What?” Felix asked, doubling forward to lean his elbows on his knees. “Why’s my mom so worried about it?”

“I dunno. She kept referencing some lady named Dr. Min, who I think might be Deanette.”

“Dr. Min?” Changbin asked. “That’s her name?”

“Apparently,” I shrugged. “And Felix’s mom thinks the academy is a prison.”

“Finally, _something_ that makes sense,” Chan popped in. I nodded in agreement.

“Why doesn’t my mom want me to do it?” Felix wondered. “I mean, I don’t want to do it either, but if my own mother doesn’t want me to…”

“Makes you wonder, how bad could it be?” I noted. “Your mom isn’t, like, exceptionally protective of you, so I’m a little concerned now.”

“Exactly, me too.”

“Hey, guys,” Jeongin interrupted, munching on a cookie of some kind, staring down cautiously at his phone screen. “My mom just texted me saying she doesn’t want me to do it either.”

Minho declared, “So did mine!” but we all had our doubts about that because his phone wasn’t even out.

-

“[e](https://youtu.be/gVkXklusXZw)” - jaden smith


	3. don't trust propaganda

The following week at school, there were new flyers posted all over campus regarding this “Mechanize Me” business. I was too afraid to talk to my parents about it, knowing they’d probably scold me for being nosy, but I had every reason to show concern. This program was worrying Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Yang and a bunch of other moms whose sons went to Seoul Independent, and Deanette had yet to go further into detail about it.

Apparently there was a “severity of this cause,” as Felix’s mother claimed, that was not disclosed to anyone except the parents, and even they were superstitious now.

“Let’s read this together,” Changbin said, taking a piece of large blue paper out of his blazer and slapping it down on the table. We were at lunch, only Chan beat Changbin to the table with Felix and Seungmin, so Changbin was stuck with Jeongin and me.

“What is it?” I asked, plucking an orange wedge off my tray and biting down on the tart insides.

“It’s one of Deanette’s new flyers,” he said, getting comfy on his plastic chair. “Aw, this seat wobbles.”

“Yeah, that’s why we make Chan sit in it,” I laughed. “So why’d you steal a flyer? You’ll get in trouble.”

“Nothing new,” he shrugged, opening a carton of milk.

“Dig in, then,” Jeongin said. We turned the paper to an angle at which all of us could read it.

“ _A chance for young men like YOU to ease into adulthood!_ ” I read in what I interpreted as an Uncle Sam voice. “ _Attend the startup assembly located in the auditorium this Friday in lieu of tenth period. Stay Independent!_ ”

“If it means I get to miss physics, I’m in,” Changbin grinned. “Though I must say—we’re really not academics-forward as a school anymore, and I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s all about independency.”

“Feel good about it! Less grades!” Jeongin exclaimed. He was working his way through a mushy pile of rice.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and held it under the table, hoping I wouldn’t catch the attention of an adult who wanted to confiscate it; we had posted Felix’s PSA about the “Mechanize Me” program on all of our Snapchat stories, and thirteen people screenshotted it from mine to repost. I informed Jeongin and Changbin of this in person and then sent out a group text, asking everyone to see how fast the PSA was spreading from their stories.

Lunch was over with no interruptions that day; Jeongin and I walked to our classes together, slowly dropping in pieces of the “Mechanize Me” conversation from the past few days. We came close to detention when our calc teacher walked past us in the midst of our illegal chat, but Jeongin covered it by saying how “elated” he was to go to the assembly on Friday and see what the fuss was all about. From then on, the whole week carried the same black and white tone, at least up until the actual event, when the auditorium was buzzing with gossip and vibrancy. Students from outside the nonagon were catching our anxieties like a cold, thanks to the PSA.

I was sitting between Jeongin and a kid named Ko Dongsun. Dongsun was really good at speaking English because he lived in England for seven years, and he picked up a funky accent that my friends and I made fun of but secretly envied.

“So what’s this assembly really about?” Dongsun asked me, leaning closer to get the scoop with no outside interference. “You seem to be in the loop.”

“We don’t really know,” I shrugged, “except that it’s fishy. Wait and see.”

“How about him?” he asked, nodding towards Jeongin.

“He knows just as much as me.”

All the lights dimmed, not in that annoying seizure-inducing flicker but in a soft decline until we were a bunch of bodies sitting dumb in the dark. Individual beams shone onto the stage as Deanette and her wide-heel pumps made themselves present.

“Good afternoon, my independent students,” she smiled at us, clapping her hands to prompt us to applaud her. She implied the applause was for us, but I knew her wicked, selfish mannerisms. “I am so glad you are gathered here to potentially improve your future.

“I have been intentionally ambiguous as to what our very new program, ‘Mechanize Me,’ has to offer to you all, but now the day is come when I disclose the key to your success as young adults. Are you ready?” Her smile was sickening, but we clapped our hands “yes” again.

The navy blue curtain behind Deanette rippled open, revealing a tall mechanical arm-looking thing, next to a stretcher with white sanitary paper on it. It looked like the blood drive setup from two months earlier, only there was no nurse in a clean starched outfit standing beside the bed to convince us the needle was a friend. There was, however, the director of the business department, Mr. Heo, a pudgy man doing his best to keep from sweating under the spotlights. He was actually a decent man from what I knew—I didn’t take business classes though.

“Today I have with me Mr. Heo, a generous contributor and co-founder of the ‘Mechanize Me’ program here at Seoul Independent Boys’ Academy. He and a few others are going to perform a demonstration using a microchip implantation device and a gracious volunteer whom you all may know. Please welcome to the stage: Ko Dongsun of the senior class!”

“Dongsun, what the hell!” I exclaimed as he stood up from beside me. Thankfully, my voice was drowned out by the people clapping erratically. He shrugged down at me excitedly, soaking up everyone’s naive ovation. I angrily grabbed Jeongin’s shoulder, pointing at Dongsun as he navigated through the rows of seats to get to the stage.

“Why’d he volunteer?” Jeongin whispered.

“‘Cause he’s stupid!” I said.

“Oh, give him a break.”

“I didn’t even know they were accepting volunteers. Deanette must’ve sought him out personally.”

“Hmm…”

Deanette brought the mic to her crackly lips once again and fired up while a couple other staff members walked onstage. “The administrative board would like to thank Dongsun for his open-mindedness as the first participant in the ‘Mechanize Me’ program. His parents have been contacted, and we assure you, there is no danger involved in this procedure.” _Then why is there a disclosure?_

Mr. Heo started operating the mechanical arm and all the attention was on him for a second. Then the school nurse, Miss Kim, who everyone called Miss Kimmy because she was so young and cute, removed Dongsun’s blazer and had him undo the first two buttons on his shirt so she could reach the back of his neck better. A man with a camera whose name I didn’t know circled the scene like a hawk, snapping photographs from every angle. I saw Dongsun sneak a thumbs-up into one as Miss Kimmy sterilized a patch of his neck, right on his trapezius. (All of this was being projected on a screen at the back of the stage.)

“He signed up for a medical procedure?” Jeongin asked for clarification, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why does the school even offer it?”

“I bet that’s why Felix’s mom doesn’t want him to get involved,” I concluded. “He has too many allergies to risk it.”

On screen, Dongsun’s side profile was shown. He looked somewhat nervous now, his shirt hanging slightly off of his top half, his Adam’s apple jouncing with each impatient gulp he took, his eyes focused on the floor. I saw out of the corner of my eye a couple of phones out, including Jeongin’s, recording the whole process.

When Mr. Heo muttered something under his breath, Deanette turned her head around to look at him sharply, her smile not faltering one bit. Dongsun seemed extra alert now, whipping his neck around to Miss Kimmy’s dismay and reaching out for her hand. She patted it gently but refused to hold it. I’d be so jealous if Ko Dongsun was the first man to hold Miss Kimmy’s hand.

But what did Mr. Heo say?

“Do not worry, everyone,” Deanette stated as if that helped Dongsun. No one knew why anyone was worrying, but _everyone_ _was_ _worrying_. At least those in the front few rows were, but Jeongin and I snagged seats in the lower middle and couldn’t keep up with the clamor. “There was a brief technical error, but it is in sorts now. We will commence the demonstration at this time.”

Dongsun took a shaky breath as Mr. Heo brought the mechanical arm to the back of his neck. Shortly thereafter, he was instructed to straighten his back and take a deep breath, and the sound of a staple gun resonated throughout the auditorium. He didn’t even wince.

“That’s kinda cool,” someone in the row behind me said as if he were changing his mind. I found myself nodding in awe.

“It looks like it didn’t hurt,” I whispered to Jeongin. He chuckled, not because something was funny but because of the surprise.

“Got it all on camera in case we wanna rewatch it,” he told me, securing the device in his breast pocket. “You know, maybe it’s not as bad as we’re making it out to be.”

“I’d like to agree with that, but still—why is this almost a mandatory program? Our moms are _scared_.”

“They’re all just anti-vaxxers.”

“Don’t turn on me now, Jeongin.”

The bell rang after Dongsun described how pain-free and quick the procedure was, and the assembly dismissed. Jeongin and I planned to meet up with Felix and ride with him to his house, just like the week before. Felix had already taken his blazer off and untucked his shirt by the time we reached him at his car. I didn’t blame him because that auditorium was hot with tension.

“Hey,” Felix waved to us, tossing his keys in the air and catching them repeatedly. “What’d you guys make of it?”

“The procedure?”

“Yeah. I don’t see how Dongsun’s ‘mechanized’ now just because he let the school put a tracking device in his neck.” I laughed at Felix’s oversimplification. “All right, hop in. My parents are going out tonight with Rach and Liv, so we’re free to go apeshit.”

“Do you know what apeshit means?” Jeongin asked, the light from the sun bouncing off his braces as he and I boarded the vehicle. I sat in the passenger seat and Jeongin took the middle seat behind Felix and me to stay included.

“Whatever.”

We drove to the sound of the radio and rapped along to the songs playing. There was a 90s special on, which Jeongin got a kick out of, while Felix and I shouted the words to keep him from hearing it.

Changbin’s car and Woojin’s bike had somehow beaten us to Felix’s house. Everyone was standing around, hanging out in the cool spring weather before it was time to head inside. I immediately walked up to Chan and put my arm around his neck like a feather boa; I’d missed him at lunch that day. He greeted me cordially in return, punching me in the ribs a few times.

“He was _soooo_ close to holding Miss Kimmy’s hand!” cried Jisung, racing inside after hearing Felix’s parents were going to be out. There was a loud bump sound and some commotion, but the view was blocked by Chan’s hand in my face. “Ah! Sorry, Mr. Lee. Sorry, Rachel.”

“I said they’re going out for the _evening_ ,” Felix corrected himself, though it was useless now. “Hey, Dad.”

“No worries,” the suntanned Mr. Lee grinned, waving at the parade of adolescents about to ruin his home. “Have a good night, guys!”

“Thank you!” all of us cried out.

“We’re going to leave a little early so we have time for ice cream,” Mrs. Lee popped up, coming out from behind Rachel and Mr. Lee with Olivia attached to her hand. “Please, don’t track mud inside—other than that, you’re free to go. Ciao!”

“Bro, your mom is so much cooler than mine,” Chan complained. We went upstairs as Felix’s family evacuated.

“You know, guys, Dongsun told me Miss Kimmy smells really good,” Minho said at the top of the steps, letting some of us squeeze past him to pile into Felix’s bedroom.

“If you’re gonna lie about something, at least don’t be pervy,” Woojin scolded him.

“I’m not lying! Dongsun is the pervy one!”

“Jeongin got the whole thing on camera,” I said, trying to change the subject. “We were sitting right beside Dongsun. I think they scouted him.”

“I got a video too! I bet mine’s better.” I couldn’t tell who said that.

“What do you mean they ‘scouted’ him?” Seungmin asked me, sitting down next to me at the foot of Felix’s bed.

“Well, was anyone here asked about volunteering?” I asked, scanning the room to see what everyone thought. “No. My point exactly.”

“Can we get some food while we talk about this? I really want some lo mein,” Jeongin asked, and we all agreed as long as he did the talking. “I’m gonna go and order.” He ventured into the hallway with his phone in hand.

“As I was saying,” I continued, “I think the administrators wanted him specifically. I dunno. Everyone sees him as this language and science wizard, so maybe they targeted him to make everyone else jump on the bandwagon ‘cause it’s the ‘smart thing to do.’”

“That’s not half bad logic,” Woojin contributed, shrugging at me as if to agree.

“You know, that’s probably right,” Changbin added.

“See? I just wish the PSA reached Dongsun faster. Now he’s tracked for life, unless he can get that thing out of him.”

Jisung said, “Maybe he saw it and thought, ‘bullshit.’ We aren’t exactly the smartest in our class.”

“Maybe they scouted him before we even heard of the program,” Chan suggested. “That sounds like something Deanette would do, right? To stay on top of things?”

“True…”

“God, this is so creepy,” Seungmin grimaced, twisting up his face at the thought. “They’re gonna spy on Dongsun! What if the microchip can read his thoughts?”

“Luckily, I don’t think that’s possible,” Felix chuckled, though you could tell he was uneasy too. “We’ll just have to wait and see. Or if anyone has classes with Dongsun, we can ask him ourselves what he’s gotten into.”

“I have the first three periods with him,” Woojin said. “I’ll ask him on Monday. Or I can snap him if we’re that curious, but I bet his phone’s blowing up right now.”

“Who cares? Snap him,” Jisung said. “Curiosity beats all.”

“All right, I will.” We were waiting on two things now: Dongsun’s reply and the food to arrive.

-

“[cold](https://youtu.be/-ZqBri8G0Kk)” - rich brian


	4. merge

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hyunjin,” my father scolded me, shutting his eyes behind those thin wire frames to express his disappointment in me.

“I’m not,” I stated, not argumentatively but factually. That was the intention, anyway. “I’m just simply saying that it’s weird. Your bosses don’t, like, _force_ you to undergo this fishy medical procedure so they can track you wherever you go, do they?”

“No,” Dad said. “But that’s exactly why you’re being ridiculous. Listen to yourself speak.”

“Please don’t bicker like this,” Mom cut in, looking back and forth between us with pleading eyes. “I have a headache. The studio was packed today.” (She was a school band conductor, an ironic profession.)

“Sorry, dear.”

“Sorry.” I stirred my rice around for a couple seconds before peeking at my parents, who were silently exchanging glances, and then I dared to add, “If you’d just watch the video Jeongin took, maybe you’d see where I’m coming from. I—”

“Enough, Hyunjin. Eat your dinner.”

“I’m done. It was delicious.” I stood up, irked, and brought my dishes to the kitchen sink. I wanted my parents to look through my point of view, but they weren’t even willing to consider it! They were going to sign me up for the program, and if I didn’t turn in that signed brochure and they found out, I’d surely be dead. Goodbye, lenient guardians.

“Not fair,” I muttered to myself as my legs carried me to my bedroom a couple of rooms away. We lived in an apartment, so everything was on the same floor; I could never be too loud, firstly because I couldn’t afford to get my family evicted, secondly because my mom had chronic migraines. Despite this, I found myself grumbling to myself a lot at times when my parents could surely hear me. _It’s a wonder they haven’t disowned me yet_.

As soon as I kicked my feet up onto my bed along with the rest of my body, my phone started buzzing wildly like a bee trying to use Morse code. My friends were texting in a group chat whose notifications I had yet to mute. I opened the messages for lack of anything better to do, and what do you know? They were talking about “Mechanize Me.” The latest text came from Minho:

 **¿Minho?, 18:36 //** Idk it just struck me as weird

 **Han Squirrel //** Yeah but that’s not new lol

 **Han Squirrel //** We should think bigger!

 **¿Minho? //** Oh yeah? How do you suppose we do that?

 **Han Squirrel //** We could always uhhhh stop making up schemes that could get us expelled. Just an idea

I decided to break up their argument.

 **Me, 18:37 //** Expelled?

 **Woojoo //** He’s not wrong. We’re basically just spreading rumors at this point and we’ve done enough to piss off the administrators.

 **¿Minho? //** But we have every reason to be concerned

 **Han Squirrel //** Based on a hunch tho

 **Me //** I can see both of your points

 **Han Squirrel //** Thank you

 **CHAN!!, 18:39 //** So idk about you guys but I’m not ready to drop all of our progress on this whole mechanize me thing

 **¿Minho? //** Same

 **Han Squirrel //** I want to stay involved but I’m afraid they’ll chip us if we keep talking shit. Who knows what Deanette thinks we know abt her

 **Woojoo //** Ughhhh you guys are mixing me up. Are we taking back the whole PSA?

 **Me //** No

 **CHAN!! //** I’d rather not

 **Woojoo //** Ok what’s the next move

 **Han Squirrel //** Do you think Deanette’s gonna have a chip drive soon to like get the Mechanize Me ball rolling?

 **Me //** Wdym?

 **Han Squirrel //** Do you think she’s going to do a blood drive type setup but its for microchipping instead

 **Woojoo //** It’s feasible

 **CHAN!! //** Bruh nobody knows what feasible means

 **¿Minho? //** Come on Chan even I know what it means

 **CHAN!! //** Damn okay

 **Me //** She probs will, Jisung. Knowing her

I turned my phone off—and muted it this time—and rolled over on my bed, feeling almost nauseous at the thought of a “chip drive” as Jisung suggested. Soon, I imagined, I’d be back in the cafeteria watching Jeongin play with some off-colored vegetables and then eat them, when the lights flickered and Deanette materialized into the center of the room to announce a mandatory chip drive.

Chip drive. Chip drive. Chip drive. I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Suddenly I needed some fresh air. It took willpower to get off my succulent bed again, given I was so comfortable there, but I trudged out the door with my phone in hand and headed to the balcony. My mom was nowhere to be seen when I passed the kitchen, but my dad was watching the news in the living room, taking up couch space. I couldn’t hear what the reporters were saying.

Once I reached the balcony, located just outside the living room, I took deep breaths and sat down on a wicker chair close to the wood railing. It was twilight out, so I couldn’t see the rest of the apartment complex below me very easily—there were, however, tail lights flashing on and off in the distance where there was a main road. I rode to school on that road.

I reopened my messaging app and didn’t bother scrolling up to see what the latest conversation was about.

 **Mogi, 18:47 //** Good I was hoping we could keep investigating lol

 **Lixie //** ur a mystery junkie, changbin

 **Mogi //** Do you blame me?! It’s rly interesting

 **Han Squirrel //** Yeah ig I can agree w that

 **Mogi //** Bless

 **CHAN!! //** What’s next lol

 **CHAN!! //** I know Woojin already asked but like we never specified

 **Lixie //** idk what we should do next

 **Han Squirrel //** Hmmmm

 **Me //** How about we lay low? Let’s just not make a big deal anymore.

 **CHAN!! //** Bruh

 **Mogi //** I thought we said we weren’t doing that

 **Me //** Nah I mean we still try and figure Deanette’s shit out but we don’t do stuff like PSAs anymore

 **Han Squirrel //** Kk

 **Mogi //** Oh. Yeah

 **Lixie //** fine by me !

 **CHAN!! //** Aight I think thatll work better

 **CHAN!! //** Watch we’re just worked up over nothing lol

I shut my phone off once again, not saying goodbye to anyone, and shut my eyes. I had a couple of homework assignments left to complete, but I didn’t want to do them just yet because they only reminded me of the uncomfortable situation at school. They reminded me that for the first time in my life, I was jealous of Felix’s never-ending list of allergies; he couldn’t get chipped because of the type of metal or plastic that was in the implant. It didn’t matter what material it was—he just couldn’t risk it. I had also recently found out Jeongin’s parents wouldn’t allow it, but that’s because they were the next best thing to hermits and didn’t like the sound of a potential tracking device. I wished my parents were better friends with Jeongin’s parents. Their ideas needed to merge, and soon.

After looking into the brochure again, I concluded that having this chip put in me would alert colleges and professional offices from across the world that I was on the path to success. That was what my dad told me, anyway—what a vague purpose though! Certainly there were other ways to get ahead of my postsecondary plans. That was why Deanette wanted everyone to be in on the “Mechanize Me” program. It wasn’t turning us into robots as the name suggested, it was allowing us to apply for schools and jobs through a virtual means so that the dirty work of growing up became cleaner, thus explaining why Deanette stressed the student body’s independency so much. That was respectable, but even after learning about it, I didn’t trust it. Not one bit. It was safe to say I trusted it even less, given the schemes my school administrators were capable of, but my parents completely disagreed.

Ko Dongsun’s grimacing face kept flashing behind my eyelids, too, making the whole ordeal harder to process. I had no proof that Jisung was right—that Deanette would have all of her eligible students form breadlines behind those stretchers with Mr. Heo’s metal implantation device standing tall behind them—but there was a heavy feeling in my gut, almost as if it were full of microchips, telling me I’d undergo that same life-changing process as Dongsun had. When Woojin asked him about the procedure, he said Deanette didn’t tell him a thing about the reasoning behind it all, claiming it was her way of keeping the suspense heavy. My poor friend.

There was definitely something dark to this chip. I wouldn’t have been so worked up if it were an exercise program or “bootcamp” as my friends suggested days earlier; my only job now was to unravel the undisclosed darkness of “Mechanize Me,” but how?

-

“[blind](https://youtu.be/pNVSwgFV6Ws)” - plt


	5. dip trive

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the thought of a cold, metal appendage pressed up against my neck, inserting a microchip whose purpose no one would know until it was too late. It gave me chills. Even my gag reflexes were alert, especially when I woke up in cold sweats thinking about the procedure. Now, obviously, if I was going to get chipped, that damned gadget absolutely _could not_ stay inside my body. I kept wondering—plotting, rather—how I would get the thing out of me. Who around me owned a scalpel? God, I couldn’t even think of the word “scalpel” without retching.

Besides, at what point did the parents stop feeling incredulous about the “Mechanize Me” program? Now all of them, whose kids were eligible, were completely on board. _How flaky of them_ , I thought.

I knew how to talk to adults, and I didn’t need a tiny green plate to do it for me when college enrollment time came around. I would do anything _not_ to get chipped at this point, but the concept of choice was slowly falling out of the picture.

The next time I went to school, I was on edge. I didn’t make it obvious until lunch, when the lights flickered enough times to trigger my hyper senses, and I propelled myself out of my chair to head for the bathroom. Hopefully my fears would purge along with the gelatinous penitentiary food I had just ingested. I heard Jeongin calling my name after I got up, but I didn’t look back at him and kept with my zombie-like jog to the toilets just outside the cafeteria.

I burst into a stall in the barren restroom and doubled over the toilet bowl, spilling my stomach contents without even shutting the door behind me. Still nauseous from the new acidic tang coating the back of my throat, I sat down cross-legged on the floor as soon as I felt totally empty, cradling my head in my palms. I had goosebumps all over me and the repulsive taste in my mouth was not far from the one being served to all the students for lunch.

“Hyunjin, you in there?” called Chan from the entrance of the restroom. His voice was very distinct and echoey. I reached behind me and pushed the door shut, flushing the toilet too so I didn’t vomit again just breathing in the odor. “It’s just Jeongin and me.”

“Sorry, guys,” I called, lifting myself off the floor and sitting on the toilet seat. I still didn’t feel like showing my face. It was probably pasty and gross-looking anyway. “What’s going on out there?”

“Deanette came out to make an announcement, but we’re missing it,” Jeongin said. “Bro, are you sick? I’ve never seen you run that fast.”

“I’m all right,” I lied. “I’ve not been feeling very well though.”

“Is it contagious? I have a thing tonight,” Chan wondered.

“No, it’s not,” I said. _Selfish_.

“Well come out then,” Jeongin said, finally knocking on my stall after figuring out which one I was in. It wasn’t that difficult because we were the only ones in the bathroom. “We’re missing the circus out there.”

I reached forward and unlatched the door, a hand on my abdomen because it was still making odd sloshing noises only I could hear. Jeongin and Chan were standing on either side of my stall, looking into it warily. “No one likes the circus.”

“True that,” Chan chuckled, flashing Jeongin a knowing look. Then, reaching out for my arm, he gestured for me: “C’mon.”

I stood up and walked out of the stall, standing between Jeongin and Chan like they were my crutches. As we left the bathroom, we could faintly hear Deanette’s microphone but her words were incoherent due to the walls muffling her voice; right when we got to the doors, though, we spotted some familiar faces in the hallway.

“Why’s Seungmin sitting on the floor?” Chan asked. He was crouched up against the wall, Jisung and Felix standing around him and making what appeared to be light conversation. Weird.

“Maybe he threw up too,” I suggested, laughing at myself.

“He looks messed up.” We approached slowly, but Felix stopped us before we could join their little commission.

“Where’d you guys go?” he asked, pushing his hair back with his right palm, the other hand on his hip.

“Hyunjin had explosive diarrhea,” Jeongin said, shaking his head sympathetically. Chan went along, and I shook my head violently.

“From my mouth! It came out of my mouth!” I tried reasoning, but that made it so much worse. Hanging my head, I muttered, “I didn’t have diarrhea.”

Felix took a step back and laughed loudly. “Dude, that’s gross.”

“He needed assistance, if you get me,” Jeongin sighed, pressing his lips together and nodding his head as if he were reflecting over the disgusting event that didn’t happen.

“Shut up! Why are _you_ guys out here?” I asked, trying to divert the attention.

“Yeah, what’s going on?” Chan asked, gesturing behind Felix at Seungmin. Finally.

“Oh,” Felix said, sobering up immediately. “Deanette started saying something about a chip drive—you know, the one Jisung was theorizing about—and Seungmin couldn’t stand to listen to it. His mom and dad are a little _too_ eager to make him do it.”

“Shit,” I reacted, my knees almost buckling. I drew in a breath from my nose and touched my stomach again, praying I could keep myself together. I broke free from my position between Jeongin and Chan, mumbling to myself, “Everything I’ve been afraid of—it’s all true.”

“Hey, take it easy,” Chan said, stretching his arm out to seize me by the shoulder. “Where you going this time?”

“I’m gonna go throw up the rest of my guts.” He shied away at my intense vocabulary. I tried backing away from the group, but Felix rushed forward this time, pivoting around me so I couldn’t get to the restrooms.

“Everything okay, man?” he asked, making the most fervent direct eye contact I had had in a long time. The concentration was uncomfortable, especially as a side dish to the thunder rolling inside my belly.

“I’m serious. Let me through.”

“You probably don’t even need to worry.” It was as if my words went in one of his ears and shot straight out the other.

“Do you blame me though?” I whined, raising my voice ever so slightly. I could feel everybody looking at me, Seungmin and Jisung included. “My parents are gonna make me go through with it! I can’t do it, Felix, I can’t!”

“Hey, hey,” he said, gesturing for me to simmer down. “It’ll be okay. You’ll have the rest of the guys with you. And Dongsun said it didn’t even hurt!”

“You lucky bastard,” I choked out. This time, his words passed through my mind without registering; my face was white hot. “You don’t have to do it. _You’re_ gonna be okay, not me. I’m gonna fucking _die,_ Felix!”

“Hyunjin, let’s take a walk,” Chan suggested, putting his hand back on my right shoulder blade. It was rare that my friends saw me in such a panic, so I appreciated their calmness. “You need some air. You and Seungmin.”

“I—” I didn’t finish my sentence but instead spat up all over Felix’s shoes and pants, narrowly missing Chan’s as well. There were tears in my eyes, none that I could control anyway.

“Damn, you weren’t playing,” Jeongin observed from about a yard away, his face contorted with disgust.

“Field trip,” Felix joked, gesturing towards the bathrooms I had just come from. How could he be so lighthearted? “Guess I should learn when to shut up.”

I covered up my face, coughing a little and feeling wetness on my lips as Felix, Chan, and I went back to the bathroom. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re stressed.”

I wanted to thank him for understanding, but I knew I would only be more embarrassed if I expressed gratitude in the fact that Felix wasn’t angry that I barfed on him, so I said nothing. Chan harped on how I should eat better because there was an awful bluish-greenish tone to the vomit, and I told him to shut up because describing my stomach acid only made things worse; Jeongin soon caught up with us, probably because witnessing a vomit cleanup was somehow better than sitting alone in the cafeteria, and made similar comments about how off-colored my throw up was.

“See!” Chan exclaimed defensively, patting Jeongin on the shoulder. “God, it reeks in here.”

“I wonder why,” Felix said. I dripped tap water on some paper towels for him and kept them coming because he insisted he could get the stains out without my help.

“Hey, Hyunjin, I never knew you threw up when you’re anxious,” Jeongin said after a while, leaning against the tile wall. His tone was rather earnest at this point. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“Yeah,” Felix acknowledged, looking up at me as he scrubbed his shoes. His eyebrows were pointed downwards with concern. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I never throw up,” I said. “Not even when I’m _actually_ sick.”

“Poor guy.”

“I guess I’m just so distressed about this stupid-ass ‘Mechanize Me’ thing that I can’t keep anything down,” I shrugged. “My parents are gonna make me do it, too, so there’s added worry.”

“Mine too, man,” Chan frowned, turning the sink on for me when I pulled some more paper towels out for Felix to use. “Whatever happens to you happens to me. Just keep that in mind.”

“Thanks, Chan.”

“Young men, you need to return to the cafeteria. This is considered a class cut.”

We all turned our heads and saw Mr. Jeon, the beloved disciplinarian here at Seoul Independent Boys’ Academy, his eyelids set wide open and his tiny mouth in an intimidating straight line. He pointed us in the direction of the cafeteria and nodded sternly.

“There’s been an accident,” Felix explained, showing our favorite man the dark, bubbly stains on the cuffs of his khakis. “They’re just helping me out.”

I wanted to add that lunch period did not count as a class, but I kept my mouth shut lest I confuse words for vomit again.

“These two appear to be loitering,” Mr. Jeon rebutted, nodding his head at Chan and Jeongin.

“We’ll be on our way, then,” Jeongin said, pulling Chan by the blazer and returning to the cafeteria.

“What a douche. I bet he busted Seungmin and Jisung too,” I shook my head disapprovingly after Mr. Jeon and the others had vanished. “How can you ‘cut’ lunch period anyway? I hope that man gets chipped.”

“He doesn’t need to go to college though,” Felix sighed, sad to disprove me.

“Whatever. He should burn in hell.”

“Calm down, man.”

“I’m calm.”

He stood up after a few silent minutes, and when I checked him out, there were only what appeared to be water stains on him. He didn’t seem to mind that I ruined his appearance for the day, which I was thankful for.

We washed our hands together. Felix said, “I totally get why you’re worried though. Everything about the program is creepy.”

“Right?”

“Don’t worry, bud.” He clapped me on the shoulder with a sudsy hand, which I couldn’t get mad at because after all, I had just puked all over his lower half. A patch of water on my blazer was no trouble at all.

We walked back to the cafeteria together, happy to see that Seungmin and Jisung were not forced to go back inside, and sat back down with our respective tables. There were only a little more than ten minutes left to the period. Jeongin and Chan welcomed me back.

“Sorry if I ruined your appetites,” I greeted them. “I’ll try not to do that again.”

“It’s all good,” Chan said. “There’s no way in hell you can ruin Jeongin’s appetite.”

“Thought I’d do you a solid and finish your lunch for ya,’” the younger boy grinned, clearly unaffected by prior events.

“Thanks,” I nodded, genuinely appreciating it. I didn’t really feel like staring at a brown banana and some greyish chicken mixed in with week-old rice for the rest of the period anyway, which you can probably understand.

“While you were gone, Changbin came and told us everything we missed,” Chan piped up, taking the a final sip out of his juice carton. “He said the dip trive is in two days.”

“Dip trive?” I asked.

“It’s code for the thing that made you dry heave. I don’t feel like wearing throw-up all day,” Chan explained. I just laughed and gestured for him to carry on. “It’ll be first thing in the morning and we’re having an early dismissal so we can all get used to the micro-dips. We have the next day off, too, so I guess it’s kinda nice.”

“So what, we line up for implants, sit on a table next to Miss Kimmy, and go home?” I summed up. Jeongin and Chan nodded their heads. “Maybe I’ll conveniently throw up that day, too. It doesn’t seem worth it.”

“You’re gonna look like a skeleton if you barf any more,” Jeongin said, shaking his head at me. “Make sure you fill up well.”

“I will, I will,” I assured him. “Aw, I just realized I’m out of skip days.” (I allowed myself six skip days a year and had used most of them during standardized testing. That wasn’t my most strategic decision.)

“It’s fine, man,” Chan told me, standing up to dump out his tray. “We’ll get it over with together and then go home. Maybe Felix will have us over like usual.”

“I’m not going to Felix’s house as long as there’s a chip in my neck,” I refused. Jeongin rose to his feet too, two trays in hand. “I don’t want him to get tracked or anything.”

“You know that’s not what the thing is for. If I’m being honest, we were being really irrational about what this chip is going to do for us,” Chan said, though deep down I knew he disagreed with his words. Maybe if we had chips in our necks right now, I could hack into his and see how he really felt about the situation.

-

“[fire](https://youtu.be/nVtzFU96V8k)” - mad clown


	6. the gulag

“Here we go.”

Woojin heard about my whole throw-up incident from days prior and was practically holding my clammy hand while we stood in line, awaiting mechanization. I couldn’t stop trembling and sweating; I was certain Miss Kimmy would have to sterilize my neck fifty times before the perspiration came to a stop.

Luckily, the line ahead of us was extensive and slow-moving. The only reason I kept uttering “here we go” to myself was to prepare myself for the moment I actually “went there.” Woojin didn’t seem to mind, at least not physically, but I bet he was cursing me out in his head. He was always such a good sport whenever someone in the nonagon was acting like a six-year-old.

“Hey, look, there’s Minho over there!” Woojin noticed, his face brightening at the sight of our friend. He nodded over at the second line, and there Minho was, standing among a couple of juniors. He seemed preoccupied and was peering over people’s heads and bouncing on his feet just for the sake of moving.

“What’s he looking at?” I asked. “The victims?”

“Don’t call them ‘victims,’” Woojin scolded me. “But I dunno what he’s looking at. There’s only an exit door over there.”

“Oh, so he’s plotting something,” I said, grabbing Woojin’s shoulder and turning him so he was looking at me. “Minho is a real one—the MVP. He’s onto something, Kim Woojin.”

“Would you calm down already?” Woojin sighed, knowing my irrational fears were getting the best of me. I knew he would snap at some point. 

“I told you I can’t do this,” I frowned. “I can’t believe my own mother put me through this. She wouldn’t understand! She’s a teacher! I bet Deanette brainwashed her into thinking it’s a good idea!”

“Hey,” Woojin said, his brows shooting up in concern. He put his hands on either of my shoulders, probably sensing the panic and edge in my tone. “Whatever you do…”

“What? Whatever I do _what_?”

“Just don’t throw up on me,” Woojin cringed. I rolled my eyes and shoved his hands off of me as everyone suddenly shifted forward a few steps. I drew in a deep breath, not moving forward along with the rest of the students but instead pushing Lee Hyungseo ahead of me. Woojin stepped behind him too to stay with me.

“Yo, Jin!” called Chan’s sprightly voice from somewhere I couldn’t see. I searched up and down the lines and saw no Chan, which, oddly enough, made my heart pound audibly. I wouldn’t have been completely surprised if I had hallucinated Chan’s voice, given my present condition. Woojin was squinting through the commotion too, searching for our friend. I spun around and finally met eyes with the overly happy kid.

“Hey, guys,” he waved, using just two fingers.

“That’s weird, you’re walking _back_ from the stage,” I said in a crazed, assertive tone. At this point, I couldn’t control what came out of my mouth—be it words or vomit.

“Yeah,” Chan sighed, nodding his head slowly. “I’m all mechanical now. You dig this scar?”

“Whoa, what? It left a scar?” Woojin asked. Chan nodded, rubbing the spot on his neck where the mechanical arm nicked him.

“You bet,” Chan confirmed. He went red in the face and grinned, “It didn’t hurt, but I asked Miss Kimmy how to get rid of the mark, and she told me to stop by her office next week!”

“Shut up, you idiot, she’s just gonna give you a baking soda scrub.” Woojin was right about that; I bet I was the reason he was so snappy.

“Chan, you’re gone forever! We’re gonna be so dumbed down, we won’t recognize each other anymore!” I cried. He stepped forward and hugged me with one arm, mumbling things like Mr. Heo did on the day of the demonstration.

“Bro, your hair is wet. Did you take a shower before you got here?” Chan asked me.

“No, I’m afraid that’s all sweat,” Woojin interrupted, showing off a patch of wet fabric on his blazer where I had leaned my head earlier. I shooed Chan off of me and turned to face the second line, which was off to my right. It was shorter than this one. _Minho will get chipped soon!_

“Can’t believe I just got chipped…” Chan rambled to Woojin behind me as I scanned the line again. There Minho was, but this time he had all of our friends standing in a little cloud around him. He caught my eye and ran over to my line immediately, running between Changbin and Felix's conversation. A couple of the guys in my line turned to look at him since he'd caused somewhat of a scene.

“Guys, I know you won’t believe me,” Minho said, jabbing the arms of Hyungseo, Woojin, Chan, me, and whoever was standing behind me. “I found a way out. Come with us!” He cocked his head in the direction of our friends.

“You’re shitting me!” Chan shouted, raising his arms in annoyance. “I already got chipped!”

“I’m sorry, man,” Minho said. “Look back there! No one is watching that exit door over there, and I think we can slip through while no one’s looking.”

“It’s a trap!” laughed the short, pimpled boy standing behind me.

Frustratedly, I returned, “You’re a trap!” and decided to follow after Minho. Admittedly, that wasn’t my best comeback, but I had bigger things to worry about. I looked at Woojin and Chan and said, “Come on, guys.”

When we met the rest of the guys in the huddle, they all seemed to take a step away from me because I was visibly saturated, but no one said anything about it because they knew my anxiety situation. Minho relayed some of his thoughts to us, and in the meantime, I met eyes with Jeongin.

“Hey,” Jeongin said, poking his head between a couple of shoulders to talk to me alone. “You okay?”

“Peachy!” I answered curtly. When everyone in the huddle started moving to the very back of the line, he and I walked together.

“Dude, did you just take a shower?”

“Shut up already!” I yelled. Jeongin followed my orders, contrary to what I _actually_ wanted him to do.

Finally he whispered, “You’re not gonna throw up again, are you?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, forcing my volume down ten notches. “Sorry, man.”

“What do you think of Minho’s plan?” Jeongin asked me, silently accepting my apology. I shrugged at him while some of the others made sure there where there were no adults patrolling. Minho sent Changbin to the exit doors as our guinea pig. The group was collectively dumbed and silent, except Jeongin and me, as we awaited his signal.

“Worth a shot,” I said. “I need to get out of here _somehow_. If no one believes him and it works, joke’s on them.”

“Somehow I don’t think you trust him,” Jeongin observed, eyeing my jittery limbs and drenched hair and clothing. “Why does this bother you so much? I mean, we’re all worked up, but you look like a neon sign that says ‘scared.’”

“I’m going insane, Jeongin. That’s why.” I brushed it off—a feat I was afraid I’d never be able to accomplish—and watched some of the others sneak through those exit doors. So far, Minho’s plan was working. He was receiving texts from those who made it safely out the exit doors.

“Hyunjin, I think you should go next,” Minho said to me. Standing around us were Jeongin, Woojin, Jisung, and Felix; the others must have gone in groups, minus Changbin. “Maybe we can go in two groups of three. It’ll make this go faster.”

“I volunteer Hyunjin to go in the first group,” Jeongin said, raising his hand. I rolled my eyes despite being thankful that he was looking out for me. There was definitely some disquiet in my stomach, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time.

“Yeah, you could use it,” Minho said, scaling me up and down. “All right. Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Felix, go on ahead of us.”

The three of us exchanged glances and split off from the rest of group. I took a series of deep breaths that could have resulted in me hyperventilating if it weren’t for Jeongin and Felix at my sides. We paced rather fast together, which I was happy about. My eyes were trained on the ground.

“Excuse me, boys.”

“Ah!”

I didn’t mean to react so loudly but a woman in a pencil skirt stepped in my path, blocking the three of us from getting to those exit doors. I felt my eyes go wide and I couldn’t form words even though the woman didn’t say anything to us yet.

“Hi, Mrs. Choi,” Felix said respectfully.

“Where are you going? I see you haven’t been stamped yet,” the woman noted, her eyebrows sticking out above her glasses. Her eyes were trained on our hands where there were evidently no stamps. I didn’t even know we’d be stamped. Shouldn't the scar be enough evidence?

“Uh—” Felix started stammering, and I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for some risky business.

“I passed out,” I lied. “They were just walking me out of the line so I could sit down.”

“What happened to your clothes, sir?” she asked me. “And your…hair.”

“I dropped a water bottle when I fell over,” I tacked on, the humiliation of lying making me red in the face. A drop of sweat rolled off a lock of my hair. I couldn’t believe how soaked I was.

“It’s true,” Jeongin said.

“Grab some paper towels for your queasy friend over here,” Mrs. Choi told Felix and Jeongin, pointing her finger strictly at them. I put my arms around them for the balance I supposedly needed help with. They led me closer and closer to the door while I craned my neck to keep watch for other adults, but thankfully, no one else got in our way.

“We’re out,” Felix whispered gleefully as we all three put our hands up against that exit door and felt the freedom wash over us. The air in the hallway was much cooler and dimmer than that in the auditorium, which was where the chip drive took place.

“Oh my God,” I practically gasped. My eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness but I stumbled over to the closest wall and sat down against it, clutching my stomach and my forehead simultaneously. I almost cried at the relief of escape, but I held back, knowing I needed to retain as much water as possible.

“Where’d everyone else go?” Felix asked, pacing quietly in front of me. Jeongin sat down next to me and pulled his phone out, blinding both of us, to text someone.

“Ask Minho how it’s going while you have your phone out,” I told him, conscious of my volume in this echoey hallway. I could finally see clearly and Felix was still pacing. “I need some water.”

“No shit,” Felix chuckled. He reached his arm out and helped me stand up. The water fountain was probably a couple of meters down the hall, and I only assumed so because there was one in every hall at Seoul Independent.

“Why’s it so fucking dark? It’s morning,” Jeongin groaned. I didn’t get very far before whirling around and looking him in the eye. Felix stopped pacing as well; we were only concerned because Jeongin typically didn’t swear except when he was joking.

“What’s up, Jeongin?”

“Changbin just texted from that end of the hall—” (he pointed in the direction of the water fountain) “—and said this area is nothing but a dead end. You know what that means? We have to go back.”

I lowered my head, my throat becoming parched out of nervousness. Felix murmured, “I guess that explains the lack of windows.”

Just then, two louder noises resonated through the anticlimactic corridor. While we could hear the faint pierce of staple guns the entire time we were in the hall, there also came new footsteps, presumably Changbin’s group. The doors we had burst through also reopened, revealing an ecstatic Minho, followed by equally bright Jisung and Woojin. The nine of us were together again, but under horrible circumstances.

“Hey, guys,” Jisung cheered, happy to see the rest of us out of that hellhole. No one said a word back, and his big grin disintegrated. “Aw, what is it?”

“We’re stuck in here,” Changbin announced, slamming his hand down on his thigh in disappointment. “The only way out is through those doors.”

“So what, this is just an elongated closet? Dumb,” Jisung retorted. “I can’t believe this.”

“Did anyone else get chipped?” Chan asked, also clearly irked by our to-die-for situation. He fanned his arms out as if there were an invisible table in front of him on which he was leaning.

“Just you, bud,” Woojin said after a long pause. “I’m sorry, Chan.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he cried, throwing some tiny object from his pocket onto the floor. Whatever it was, it bounced. “I—”

The door opened yet again. All of us turned our heads and anticipated our sentence. I was thinking it could be Mrs. Choi or Mr. Jeon coming into the elongated closet to bust us and bring us to Deanette’s personal gulag, but it was evidently not. The person who joined us was wearing the same blazer as us and was loosening his long, narrow tie. He pulled a tiny black rectangular prism out of his jacket pocket without even acknowledging the presence of nine others in the hall.

“Dongsun?” asked Seungmin. He made several strides forward so our fellow student would acknowledge him.

“God!” Dongsun exclaimed, staggering backwards out of surprise. “I didn’t know there was anyone else in here. I’m sorry, guys.”

“Whatcha got there?” Minho asked, his voice sounding somewhat playful. He gestured at Dongsun’s rectangular prism.

“Oh—” he quickly shoved it back into his pocket. “It’s nothing.”

Minho grinned, “It’s okay, you can juul in here.” I laughed at the irony, seeing as he was such a good student.

“Thanks.” He was sheepish but he carried on, producing a white cloud that he proceeded to suck into his nostrils. It was quite a sight. “Are you guys in hiding?”

“Not for long,” Chan said. “There’s no way out of this hallway except _that_ door.”

“Terrific,” Dongsun rolled his eyes. I was seeing him in all different colors today!

“Why are you here?” I asked, genuinely curious.

He took a pause and looked at each of us in the eyes. I was yet again greeted with a disgruntled sensation in both my head and my stomach. Remnants of Dongsun’s vapor cloud traveled through the hall to where the rest of us were sitting or standing and a few of us coughed, unused to the substance in the air. Dongsun leaned against the wall directly beside the door and slid down, reminding me that I wanted to sit, too.

“The only reason I endorsed the microchip was that I thought it wouldn’t affect me,” Dongsun told all of us, his voice dropping to a regretful whisper. “And I just realized that’s because the thing wasn’t turned on until today. I feel so woozy.”

“Woozy how?” Chan asked. “It hasn’t set in yet for me.”

“Give it some time,” Dongsun warned. “My head hurts a lot and everything turns blurry every few minutes. This hasn’t happened with the chip until today, and I know I’m perfectly healthy, so it can’t be anything else.”

“So it’s messing with you? Is it some sort of reaction?” Woojin questioned. “Have you taken meds?”

“No,” Dongsun shrugged. “And it’s not a reaction. I only have seasonal allergies.”

“Guys, I’m worried now,” Chan popped up. “We have to get out of here.”

“I’m not going out there,” I told him defiantly. “I can’t. You saw how I was acting.”

“How were you acting?” Dongsun wondered.

“Looney.”

“I’ll just wait till the lines are completely gone and then I’ll sneak out—but I’m not leaving this hallway as long as there are implantation devices in the auditorium.” I folded my arms across my chest adamantly.

“But what am I supposed to do? Sit and wait to become a goddamn robot?” Chan yelled.

“Quiet down!” Changbin interrupted. “Those doors aren’t soundproof. Let’s just wait till the noise out there dials down, and then we’ll all go out together.”

“Good idea,” Woojin said.

“Guys, this is so messed up. This is so whack.”

Jisung kept naming the things this situation was, including stupid, illegal, and “whack” once again, and I turned back to Jeongin, my eyes shutting and refusing to open back up. “I think I’m gonna be sick again.”

“Not on me,” he said, standing up at light speed and darting across the hall. “Do _not_ throw up over here.”

“Aww, he’s sick again?”

“I can’t help it,” I complained. “I-I have a fever or something. I’m sweating so bad.”

“Go get some water, okay?” Chan said. Fortunately, his voice was more concerned than repulsed, and I followed his instruction by walking myself to the hypothetical water fountain around the bend in the hall. It was harder to find since I’d never been back there before and the lighting was worse the further I went from the doors.

While I was plodding away, I heard Dongsun ask the group what was wrong with me, and they came up with a multitude of things in my defense that Dongsun was forced to either shrug off or be eternally weirded out by. I tuned everyone out as soon as I found the water fountain and drank a little more water than I probably should have, given my upset stomach. I enjoyed the solitude though and wandered further down the dead-end hall, expecting nothing but a couple of toppled folding chairs and maybe a microphone stand intended for the stage. I did find a light switch in addition to these things and risked flipping the switches into their on-position.

“Was that you, Hyunjin?” called someone from the main section of the hall as I trudged back to them.

“Yeah.” I heard some sighs of relief. While I was walking back, I heard one of my crew asking Dongsun where he bought his juul, and everyone else spoke up in a hushed pandemonium of opposition. I didn’t care to find out who it was before stooping down low and spewing up all that water I mistakenly chugged. I didn’t see it coming until my knees touched the floor tiles.

-

“[florida kilos](https://youtu.be/E4p3-IpaIzE)” - lana del rey


	7. tea

Felix came to my house the day after the chip drive. I told my parents he was here to help me prepare for an oral English exam since he was more fluent in it than in Korean.

“You’re kinda like Dongsun,” I remarked out of the blue. We were lounging on my couch with numerous types of snacks balanced on the single cushion that divided Felix and me. He looked over at me oddly from his corner of the couch and glared at me. “You know, ‘cause you’re both really good English speakers. The only difference is that he makes sure everyone in the academy knows it and you couldn’t care less.”

“Wait—did you  _ actually _ need help with English? I thought we were just hanging out,” Felix admitted, burying his fingers in our shared bag of gummy candy. I laughed and shook my head.

“We’re just hanging out,” I assured him. “I was just thinking about it. He even said he has seasonal allergies, too.”

“My allergies aren’t just seasonal,” he said. “Also, if you compare me to Dongsun one more time, it’s a gummy grape shoved up your nose.”

“Don’t tempt me!”

“Hilarious.” He yanked his iPhone off its charger and opened Snapchat, which I was using too. I had answered all of my streaks and was texting back and forth with some of the others in our nonagon group chat.

“Jeongin sent us that video of the demo, right? How long ago was that?” Felix asked me, squinting at his phone screen. The brightness would not budge, he claimed. “Never mind—found it.”

“Why do you wanna watch it again?” I asked. “Are you having second thoughts about us ditching the chip drive?”

“Not that second thoughts would matter to me,” Felix told me. “I’m ineligible anyway—I showed up for moral support. I’m just curious about it. We were so worked up over what looks like nothing.”

“But remember what Dongsun said about it?” I asked. “He feels ‘woozy.’ No one says ‘woozy’ unless they’re, like, hammered.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” Felix said incredulously, reaching for another gummy fruit. “Besides, he was juuling, so even if you were right, he could’ve been wrong in his head. I talked to Chan and he confirmed everything Dongsun said. Didn’t hurt, left a scar, and made him feel sick within an hour.” He counted off three fingers, which was a habit of his.

“You don’t think that’s why they let us out of school, do you?” I asked. “Because they knew it’d have side effects?”

“The only way a microchip would have those kinds of side effects is if it had coded neurotransmitters or emitted some kind of toxin into the tissue. I don’t know about you, but that’s the whole reason I’m curious.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “Also, why do you know so much about microchips, you nerd?”

“I’m just theorizing here,” he defended. “Dogs don’t get sick when they’re microchipped.”

“They’re also  _ dogs _ . Not humans.”

“Shut up, killjoy,” Felix scowled, nestling himself deeper in between two couch cushions, a fuzzy blanket concealing his reality of falling through the cracks. “Oh, you know what? I totally forgot about that technical error Mr. Heo had.”

“Me too,” I said, scrolling up on my phone a couple of days to find the chain of video clips Jeongin sent us after the demonstration. “Which clip is it?”

“Fourth to last.”

“I really want to know what he said that made Dongsun so worried.”

“I brought my laptop,” Felix said, eyeing me hopefully. I glanced up from my phone to see where he was going with this laptop idea. “I could download this clip and try to bring the volume of Mr. Heo’s voice up a little so we can decipher it. It’s really not that deep, but I’m intrigued.”

“Me too,” I said. “Do it. Maybe what he said was important.”

“Finally, some good—” Felix started, but his voice cut short and he sneezed, looking down regretfully at the handful of candied almonds in his hands.

“Come on, man,” I groaned, knowing he was allergic to tree nuts. Thankfully, this was one of his milder allergies. “I didn’t even grab almonds out of the pantry. Where’d you get them?”

“I have no idea,” Felix said, leaning his head against the back of the couch and shutting his eyes, which were producing tears as if he’d just seen  _ Titanic _ for the first time. “I’m gonna just carry on with this video clip, and if I start swelling up, grab me some benadryl.”

“I’m getting you some either way.” I climbed out of my comfortable nook in the couch and ventured into the nearest bathroom to raid the medicine cabinet. I didn’t know how much he needed and how often, so I brought back the entire box and tossed it onto his lap without a warning. He had some Sprite with him which he could wash it down with.

“Do you need your epipen or inhaler or something?” I asked, just being cautious before I got comfy again.

“No,” Felix said, his face two times pinker and bigger than it was when I left. I tried my best not to stare, but that only made things worse because he realized I was looking anywhere but him, so he reached up and felt his cheeks. “I probably look like the Abominable Snowman.”

“Maybe if you were white,” I shrugged, earning a chuckle. He swished his Sprite in his mouth and took two tablets, keeping the box of benadryl handy.

“I forgot what almonds taste like. They’re so good.” He sneezed again, then widened his eyes at his laptop screen so that he could actually see it.

“Yeah, well they’re less good when they’re not covered in sugar. In fact, they’re kinda plain.”

“Say what you want. They’re god-tier.” He kissed his fingertips like the stereotypical Italian chef.

“Sucks to be you, then.” He threw his leftover almonds at my face but missed by a long shot, which I couldn’t blame him for because his eyes were practically swimming in the amount of water that poured out of them, and his cheeks were puffed beyond chipmunk-level.  _ It’s sad how normal it is for him to look like this _ .

I searched the snack cushion for the container of almonds and put it on the end table so he wouldn’t mistakenly reach into it again.

“How’s it coming?” I asked in reference to the video clips, but I refocused on my phone screen where Woojin and Seungmin were having a funny yet intellectual argument about nuclear science.

“It’s still downloading. Can we put something on the TV?”

“Yeah.” I threw the remote from the end table at him because I didn’t feel like channel surfing. It clacked against his keyboard, and subsequently I watched him backspace a bunch of times.

Felix flipped through different channels and then through the latest picks on Netflix, finally landing on some American rom-com from 1999. I shut off my phone and became oddly interested in the plot within ten minutes; maybe it was because Woojin and Seungmin were  _ still _ bickering, but in any case, I’d never seen the movie before. I was sure Jeongin would like it since he was so into American culture.

“It’s rendered,” Felix told me after about twenty minutes.

“It took twenty minutes to download a thirty-second video clip? Get a new laptop, man,” I answered, turning the volume down on the TV.

“No, I finished playing with the audio,” he corrected me, tilting his laptop screen so I could see it better. “I added subtitles for Mr. Heo too ‘cause you looked really invested in Hugh Grant and I didn’t wanna disturb you.”

“Shut up.”

He played the clip. There Mr. Heo stood, his skin dewy under the spotlight and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Felix’s subtitles had yet to appear because Deanette was still rambling about her gracious feelings towards Ko Dongsun of the Senior Class. In a couple of seconds, the student sitting in front of Jeongin got up and left—I must have been so engulfed in the demonstration that I didn’t see him leave on the day it happened—and then Mr. Heo’s facial expression changed. He was evidently frustrated, but why? It had yet to be revealed.

“ _ Wrong implants, _ ” Mr. Heo muttered, and then Dongsun whipped his head around. The video stopped abruptly there.

“Wrong implants?” I asked, looking at Felix for an explanation. Thankfully, his face had shrunk back down to its normal size and color by now, but he was evidently fighting back a yawn.

“Wrong implants,” he repeated, shrugging at me and succumbing to his urge to yawn. “I don’t know what he meant. Why would there be more than one implant in the first place?”

“I dunno,” I said, pausing the movie so I wouldn’t miss any more of it. “They probably went through a couple of chips before finding the right one, don’t you think?”

“Shouldn’t they dispose of the failed ones though?” Felix rebutted. “If you’re right, then  _ everyone _ has the bad chip. I know they wouldn’t have given Dongsun a bad chip and everyone else the good stuff, or vice versa.”

“Who cares what they  _ should’ve  _ done? The school is all sorts of wicked.”

“Yeah…” his voice trailed off into nothingness and we were both left drowning in a pool of confusion. “I’ll text everyone the clip and see what they think.”

I peered down at my phone, waiting for the guys to respond.

**Lixie sent an attachment.**

**Lixie, 10:11 AM //** hyunjin and i discovered something..

**Mogi //** Uhhhhhh

**CHAN!! //** Wrong implants?

**Desert Fox //** Video creds

**Me //** What do you guys make of it? We think they gave everyone a bad chip

**CHAN!! //** Bad how???

**Me //** Not sure

**Mogi //** That’s the only thing that makes sense

**Mogi //** Why else would Heo say “wrong implants” ?

**Lixie //** idk but i’m worried for chan now

**CHAN!! //** That makes 2 of us.

**Desert Fox //** Maybe its just untrackable lol

**CHAN!! //** God I hope so

**Lixie, 10:13 //** doubtful

**Me //** Chan pls keep us updated on how the chip feels and stuff so we can figure out what’s wrong with it

**CHAN!! //** Ok

**Mogi //** How do we know they didnt jsut give Dongsun the wrong chip? Chan’s could be perfectly fine

**Me //** True but it’s better to think worst case scenarios here

**CHAN!! //** Gimme one good reason why. you’re such a pessimist

**Me //** So we actually know how to handle the situation dumbass

**CHAN!! //** :(

**Desert Fox //** Changbins right though, you never know if they only messed up Dongsun’s chip

**Lixie //** well hyunjin and i considered that and we think since dongsun is so beloved, deanette wouldn’t allow him to be the only one with a failed chip. so we all suffer

**CHAN!! //** So I* all suffer :((((((

**Mogi //** It’ll be ok Chan

Felix and I looked at each other and shook our heads over an unspoken but fully understood matter. We had already said it, but we were all worried for Chan and his well-being. Dongsun resorting to nicotine and Chan texting us in a panic was all adding up, and not just for them—the whole student body was doomed.

No one sent any messages for a while. Changbin’s reassuring one had been read and acknowledged by everybody. In just a moment’s time, my phone was ringing, and it was Chan FaceTiming me. Felix urged me to answer it.

“Hey,” I said. “Say hi to Felix.”

“Hey,” Chan said, and Felix waved when I flashed his face across the camera. It appeared that he was sitting in his bathroom. “Are you two busy? I can call back later.”

“It’s okay, we’re just sitting around.”

Chan dragged a hand down his face as if to wipe off all his troubles. He was noticeably paler today, too, though I wanted to believe it was because of the lighting. “I’m so worried, you guys.”

“We are too,” I said, “but you’ll be okay. You have a whole class who are going through the same thing as you.”

“Everyone else is dumb and ignorant,” Chan said, almost cutting me off, his voice breaking. I made a face—which I wouldn’t have noticed, had we not been on FaceTime—and looked closer at him. His eyes looked very glossy. “I hate saying this, but I wish you guys felt how I feel.”

“Well how do you feel?” I asked, sitting forward. Felix scooched closer to me, quietly moving some of our snacks onto the coffee table so he wouldn’t crush them.

“Like throwing up,” Chan admitted.

“Boy, do I have good news for you,” I joked in reference to my newly discovered anxiety purge. Chan cracked a smile and shook his head, taking his red eyes off the screen to look downward. “Sorry you feel that way. Make sure you’re drinking lots of fluids.”

“I am,” he told me. “It really hurts now.”

“The chip? They said it’s not supposed to,” I told him.

“I know it’s not, but look.” He stood up in front of a mirror and peeled the collar of his t-shirt back so his neck was exposed. There was a rather sizeable reddish-purplish patch right where the chip was inserted.

“Is it infected?” I asked, screwing up my face in disgust.

“I think so. I really hope so.” Chan sat down somewhere in the room with the mirror and brushed his fingers through his wavy mop of hair, visibly distressed. I couldn’t tell because the screen started to lag a little, but I could’ve sworn a single tear rolled down his pale cheek. I didn’t want to draw attention to it, though.

“Why do you want it to be infected?” I asked.

“So I can get it removed.”

The three of us were at a loss for words, it seemed. Seeing Chan, who was obviously crying but trying to conceal the fact,  _ this _ uncomfortable and bothered was difficult to sit through without doing anything. I muted my end of the call and turned to Felix.

“I feel so bad for him.”

“Me too,” Felix mumbled, his eyes turned downward.

“The nurse gave me a little pamphlet when I was getting the implant,” Chan suddenly said, so I unmuted myself and prompted him to continue. “It says some of the symptoms on it.”

“Do you have any of them?”

“All of them,” he said, waving around the little blue packet he was referring to. He flipped his camera and showed us the list of symptoms.

“Are you sure you have  _ all  _ of those?” Felix asked, bringing his hand to his mouth in shock. I didn’t get a chance to finish reading the list—I only got down to “loss of appetite” before Chan showed his face again, though evidently Felix read the whole thing. “Typically for that last one, it’s for people who are on antidepressants…”

“Yeah,” said Chan. Suddenly we heard the rattling of some pills and he showed us an orange container that was holding them, and this time, he didn’t hide that he was crying.

-

“[used to the darkness](https://youtu.be/7MrRi-2nokM)” - des rocs


	8. the breakfast club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> that's rough

School wasn’t much different after our day off. It was as if all that vomitus and stress had been expelled from me for no reason at all—I had lost two and a half pounds for nothing.

At least for me, it felt the same. Felix and Woojin, on the other hand, had been complaining nonstop to the rest of the nonagon that their substitute in business education was a fraud and that they missed their favorite teacher, Mr. Heo. He was apparently suspended for committing a misdemeanor, but in the email all the business students received, said misdemeanor was not specified.

Rumors about the ex-teacher were circulating among my friends and a few others whose names I wasn’t familiar with. Judging by the whispers heard every time I took a step in the hallway, everyone had his own varied suspicions and conspiracies as to why Mr. Heo was gone. Even as a non-business student, I had less hope of escape from Seoul Independent than before—he was such a friendly person to be around, and no one else in the administrative half of the school matched his kindness. My money was on this: he was terminated for being too humane.

“Someone said he had a DUI,” Jeongin told me at lunch. Chan and I both made a face. “Yeah. Minki told me in calc while you were up sharpening our pencils.”

“Really? He had to spill the tea right when I left?” I groaned, slamming my hand on the table with faux anger. Jeongin giggled at my reaction, spooning some kimchi into his mouth and swigging his banana milk directly afterwards. Just watching him ingest such an odd combination of flavors made me wonder if maybe he was the reason I was so queasy the past couple of days.

“What the hell, Jeongin,” Chan suddenly said, his facial expression appearing genuinely disconcerted. “Why are you eating like that?”

“What’s with you?” I asked, helplessly smirking a little because he made it awkward. Jeongin narrowed his eyes.

“I always eat like this,” he said to Chan. “You know I have a big appetite.”

“Yeah, but…” Chan shook his head as if to clear his etch-a-sketch brain. “Never mind. Carry on.”

“What was that about?” I asked, shoveling some of the kimchi into my mouth as well—it wasn’t half bad today. I called it “minimally soggy.”

“I dunno,” Chan said, scratching the back of his neck and clearing his throat. “I’m in a weird mood.”

“I can see that,” Jeongin said smartly, picking a slice of broiled pork off Chan’s metal tray. “Don’t let that microchip get to your head, man.” Then it dawned on me that Chan was scratching at his implant.

I wasn’t surprised that Jeongin didn’t take Chan’s offensive comment to heart. He didn’t embarrass easily, except occasionally, though maybe that was because the only humiliating thing he did was eat as if his taste buds didn’t work properly and he was used to that at this point in the year. In any case, we continued eating lunch as on a normal day, Chan eventually switching seats with Minho just for the fun of it and then demanding his seat back in the last ten minutes. Minho repeated his annoying catchphrase to Chan: “Move your feet, you lose your seat. Rules are rules.” I mouthed the “rules are rules” part along with him because I knew he’d say it.

Jeongin cocked his head and grinned at me. “Somehow, I feel like I’ve heard that phrase before.”

“Mhmm,” I hummed, my shoulders bobbing up and down as I laughed.

“It’s from a famous movie, that’s why,” Minho said, trying unsuccessfully to fool us. He should have learned at this point that each and every one of us could see through his lies.

“It is not! Now get off your A-word!” Chan yelled, totally serious despite earning three puzzled glances: one from Jeongin, one from Minho, and one from me.

“A-word?” Minho practically started cackling after he repeated Chan’s censored version of “ass,” and the poor guy didn’t seem to acknowledge that we were criticizing him until too late.

“I said I’m in a weird mood,” Chan grumbled, his face turning an endearing shade of pink.

“When?”

“You weren’t there.”

We all dumped our trays out together. Minho and Chan raced to the table and beat Jeongin and me to it, leaving one of us to go and sit with Jisung and Seungmin. I volunteered to because I usually never left my seat, except to throw away the indigestible two-thirds of my meals. Jeongin bid me farewell, even though we would see each other again in five minutes, and I made my way across the noisy cafeteria. Sitting in a different table was rather disorienting for someone who doesn’t like change.

“Funny seeing you here,” Seungmin said, smiling at me. “You should sit over here more often. Today, Minho claimed his pinky toe was broken, and that’s why he pulled a nine-minute mile in gym class.”

“For the millionth time, why does he say things to make himself look _bad_?” I scoffed. “Man never learns.”

Jisung laughed at me, finishing off his apple and throwing the core lazily under his seat. “He’s too good of a person to brag about himself.” How ironic.

Seungmin nodded, “Can’t argue there.”

“Oh, God, he’s got both of you lying too!” I gasped, purposely flailing my arms in what appeared to be a panicked state. Jisung clutched his stomach laughing at me, and Seungmin rolled his eyes with a smile on his lips, though he was staring down at his phone at this point. I grabbed mine out of my pocket and held it under the tabletop to check my texts.

I had one from Felix that was sent less than twenty minutes ago.

 **Lixie, 11:32 //** have u talked to chan yet?

 **Me, 11:47 //** No. Didn’t know I was supposed to

 **Lixie, 11:48 //** about that thing we found out on facetime

 **Me //** Oh...I didnt think about that but he was acting weird today

 **Me //** He was like oddly sensitive

 **Lixie //** oh?

 **Me //** Yeah

 **Lixie //** hmm i will talk to him when i take him home

 **Me //** Lmk how it goes

“Kim Seungmin,” said a female voice from somewhere behind Jisung. All of us looked around, our eyes simultaneously landing on Mrs. Choi’s skeletal figure. I forgot she typically covered this half of the cafeteria while Mr. Jeon watched my half. “You put your cellphone away this instant, or I will confiscate it. You know what that means for you, do you not?”

“I do not,” Seungmin said smugly, shoving his phone into his pants pocket while eyeing Mrs. Choi. I’d never seen him behave so boldly towards an adult, but Jisung remained unbothered. I just knew that at this point, all of us were fed up with the school’s policies and Seungmin was expressing it. I slipped my own phone into my pocket just to be safe, not letting her know that I had it out in the first place.

She placed her balled fists on her hips, nearly ripping the seams on her tight beige blazer sleeves in the process. “That means your parents will receive an email from the headmaster explaining that you are a rule-breaker and a delinquent, and you will be serving four hours of detention. You had best listen to your authorities, Kim Seungmin, unless you enjoy sitting in the library by yourself on Saturday.”

“I could stand to join the Breakfast Club,” Seungmin shrugged. Now Jisung was intrigued and he looked at me with the widest eyes I’d ever seen on him. Even my face felt warm with flames of secondhand embarrassment. How the hell would he walk out of this cafeteria alive?

“Watch what you say to me, Bender.” Mrs. Choi held her hand out palm-up for Seungmin’s phone, but the bell rang before she could give further implications, and Seungmin ran for his life. Jisung and I walked cautiously towards Jeongin, as Minho and Chan were already gone, and we relayed the whole encounter for them.

“Seungmin is such a badass!” Jeongin exclaimed fanatically, clapping his hands together.

“A dead and buried badass,” Jisung scoffed. “No, ‘badass’ is the wrong word. He’s a _jackass_. Did you not hear what just happened? He’s gonna fuckin’ die!”

“He can sit with us tomorrow at lunch,” I offered as a means to protect our intrepid friend. “I never knew he had that audacity; I’ve gained so much respect for my endangered brother.” I patted my heart with my fist, and the guys around me both laughed.

“Hey, Jisung,” a boy we passed in the hallway called out. He had been walking in the opposite direction of us, but he turned around and slipped himself between Jisung and me to join our conversation.

“Hey, Haeshin,” Jisung said, tugging at the adjustment strings on his backpack.

“You hear about Mr. Heo getting fired?” said Haeshin. I could only see the back of his head since he was only interested in Jisung out of the three of us, but Jisung’s eyes widened and he nodded his head vigorously. While I was waiting for their little chat to end, I noticed Haeshin had a pinkish scar right on his trapezius. I could only see it because he had just lost a lot of weight and his uniform was sagging on him now. “I just found out why!”

“Really? Why?” Jisung asked.

“As it turns out—” he cut himself off and whirled his head around, looking at Jeongin and me with a petty look in his shit-toned eyes. Suddenly Haeshin was very aware that Jeongin and I were listening, too. He whispered something to Jisung after that, assuring himself that we could not hear.

Jisung paused for a moment, making that face he unintentionally made whenever his mind went blank. After the brief delay, he exclaimed, “Oh, wow!” but I could tell there was something ingenuine about his answer. Haeshin nodded his head factually and scurried off in the other direction.

“What was all that about?” Jeongin wondered. “He’s kind of a dick-off now that he’s skinny.”

“‘Dick-off’ isn’t a thing, but nice try, sweetie,” I teased, ruffling up Jeongin’s hair. He swatted my hand away wordlessly.

“He’s not very bright,” Jisung rolled his eyes. “He said Mr. Heo was terminated for ‘allegations of possession,’ but that’s what Minho tried telling Seungmin and me at the beginning of lunch, so I know it’s not true.”

“Ah.”

“Figures, someone like Haeshin would believe Minho.”

I fell asleep in at least two of the remaining periods that day, but thankfully, Jeongin was there to shake my shoulder before any of my teachers saw me dozing off. We had ninth period with Felix, and he said he wanted to drive me home today—I suspected his offer was just so we could talk to Chan together. On my way out of tenth, I texted him and he confirmed my suspicion. Jeongin walked off to the buses while I made a dash for the parking lot where Felix’s car would be. They were waiting for me in the front two seats.

“How goes it, slow poke?” Felix asked me as I threw my bag onto the seat and climbed in.

“It goes perfectly well,” I said complacently, buckling myself into the middle seat. Felix watched me through his mirror until we met eyes and I nodded at him, though I didn’t know why.

He said, “Hey, Chan.”

“Yeah?”

Felix pulled out of his parking spot, his finger hovering over the radio button but not actually pressing it. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Just me or Hyunjin too?” the oblivious boy wondered, hugging his backpack so it didn’t slide off his lap and mistakenly put the car in reverse.

“Just you, but I think Hyunjin knows what it’s about.” Felix’s eyes flickered at me through his rearview once again, and I just nodded silently, breathing slowly. I was never good at confrontation, so this was uncomfortable for me despite Felix doing all the talking so far.

Chan shrugged, “Okay, shoot.”

“So,” Felix started, leaning forward in his seat to peer around a bush that was blocking his view of the oncoming traffic. He had a valid excuse for not making eye contact with Chan, but if Chan were to look back at me, I had nowhere to hide. “How come you never told any of us you’re taking antidepressants?”

Chan was quiet all of a sudden, and I didn’t blame him one bit. He looked out the window and made no attempt to say anything; even if he wanted to verbalize his thoughts, he didn’t.

“Chan,” I coaxed, reaching far out in front of me to put my hand on his shoulder. I was too nervous to say anything else reassuring.

“Sorry,” Chan mumbled. From behind, it looked like he was grimacing to himself because his shoulders were suddenly hunched up to his ears and his face was almost touching the window pane. Felix and I sighed in time with each other.

“We get it if you don’t want to talk about it,” Felix said, “but I think you should at _some_ point. You know, so we’re available to help you when you’re down.”

“I only told you ‘cause of this stupid chip,” Chan said after a couple more quiet seconds. He still refused to initiate eye contact. “I meant to keep it a secret.”

“If it helps, you were really good at hiding it up until we FaceTimed,” Felix admitted. “Would you say the chip makes you less aware of what’s coming out of your mouth or something?”

“Yeah.”

More awkward silences came and passed, but Felix had a line of questions and statements stored in his brain to make up for my lack of conversation. “So how long have you known?”

“A month.” God, a whole month? That must have been hell.

“I’m sorry, man.”

At last, Chan looked at us, his hands and feet noticeably fidgety now. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“We won’t,” Felix said. Chan looked backwards at me, and I nodded at him.

“We won’t,” I repeated.

In almost no time, we had reached my apartment. No one had said anything for the remainder of the car ride and Felix even left the radio off, so I was eager to go home and escape the tension. I grabbed my bag and slung it lazily over my shoulder before I was even out of the vehicle, and after I shut the backseat door, Chan’s window rolled down.

“Hyunjin,” he called before I could get inside.

“Yeah?”

“Come here for a sec.”

“Did I forget something in the car?”

“No, just come here.”

I walked up to him as he ducked his head under his seatbelt strap so that he had more wiggle room. Then he stuck his noodle arms out the window and hugged me right around my core. Honestly, I didn’t know how to react, so I patted his head a couple of times until he let me go, and then I waved goodbye to him and Felix.

So much, yet also so little, had just happened.

-

“[so he won’t break](https://youtu.be/TzlGhIpJ1FI)” - the black keys


	9. don't need your love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> stream dnyl https://youtu.be/ESVsbCkFvG4

Mondays were particularly sucky due to a number of things: I was always groggy from Sunday night insomnia, my school was run by crazed machines, and the lunch usually consisted of Friday’s leftovers. Of course that didn’t phase Jeongin, which would normally wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for Chan’s microchip making him act estranged to us. (We didn’t know for sure whether it was the chip or not, but he was perfectly normal before the implantation.)

Chan was running on an empty stomach and had been goggling at Jeongin, who saw absolutely no fault in the curiously grey tofu soup that was served today.

“I’m trying my best,” Chan told us sheepishly as part of an overdue apology for his lack of etiquette. His hair hung down over his eyes; he must not have combed it in days, though as of lately, I could understand why he didn’t have that daily motivation anymore.

“It’s fine,” I said sympathetically, patting Chan on the shoulder. “You’re just being a little judgy, that’s all.”

“ _A little_ ,” Jeongin snorted.

“In all seriousness, I don’t think it’s safe how much of this goop you eat,” Chan continued, unknowingly taking back his entire apology. He swirled his spoon in the mushroom-colored liquid on his own tray, picking up a block of tofu in the process and letting it splash back into the dish. Jeongin looked at me with a dead expression—as if _I_ knew how to help.

“I have a high metabolism,” Jeongin reminded him. “I have to manage it _somehow_.”

I shook my head and nibbled the end off of a banana. If Seoul Independent’s cafeteria was good for anything, it was the fruit supply. Looking across the room, I noticed our other friends also consciously choosing to focus on the oranges and bananas instead of the tofu soup and the chicken. We were a wise bunch, for the most part.

I randomly met eyes with Jisung and waved my fingers, though he seemed a bit off—at least that was what his expression told me, and I wasn’t sure how well I could read people’s body language from a distance. I tilted my head at him in confusion and he pointed down at his lap, hinting at me to take my phone out. Thank God Mr. Jeon wasn’t in the area.

 **Han Squirrel, 11:35 //** Ppl are looking at you

 **Me //**?

 **Me //** Are my pants wet or something? Elaborate

 **Han Squirrel //** Idk just look around. There are ppl looking at your table funny

I surveyed the room, accidentally initiating eye contact with a handful of guys I wasn’t friends with, only to find out Jisung was right. I looked back at him and shrugged, also observing that he told Minho, who was now looking around the cafeteria as well.

“Guys,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Why’s everyone looking at us?”

“What do you mean?” Jeongin asked. Chan saw for himself and swallowed uncomfortably.

“I _mean_ ,” I said, “look anywhere in this room and tell me I’m wrong.”

He did as I said and, in a panic, grabbed Chan’s water bottle and my dish of kimchi to distract himself with. “People here are whack. I hate it.”

“Me too,” I frowned.

“What could they be looking at?” Chan asked, trying not to cringe at Jeongin again. His cheeks were kind of sunken in—they were usually chubby.

“Maybe they’re looking at what _you’re_ looking at,” I suggested in an aggravated tone of voice. In all honesty, I was growing tired of Chan’s behavioral changes. I wanted the old Chan back so that I didn’t constantly have to remind him that he was valid while still keeping his depression a secret from the others; I wanted him to remember that swearing and using contractions was _normal_ ; and right now, I wanted him to drop the subject of Jeongin’s eating habits. The poor junior was healthier than all of us combined anyway, so why did Chan care so much?

“I’m not looking at anything,” Chan said defiantly, pointing his chin upwards at me. Then he turned his eyes away from either of us and snatched his water bottle back, passing Jeongin his tray of food as a trade. I thought that was kind of hypocritical, but I let it slide because I was on Team Jeongin.

“Great! Looks like we have company,” Jeongin rolled his eyes, nodding in the direction of three boys who were walking towards our table. They were named Haeshin, Jaebong, and Sangmin and were all in my math class. All of them were completely against everything I associated with.

“‘Scuse us,” said Jaebong, his eyes big and wide like they just grew two inches in diameter.

“You’re excused,” I answered. I was unenthused.

“Uh,” Jaebong said nervously, rubbing his hands together and then pointing to Jeongin’s tray. “What’re you doing there, Jeongin?”

“Sitting, breathing,” my friend listed, smiling with tight lips to convey his hatred towards the situation. I really couldn’t blame him, especially after Chan had started bugging us.

“No, I meant with all that food,” Jaebong laughed. He shouldn’t have been laughing; _he_ was the one who looked stupid. Haeshin laughed as well, scratching at the back of his neck again while his eyes were focused on Jeongin’s tray. Sangmin was relatively quiet but still giggled with the others.

“What are you laughing at?” I said, turning more directly to the guys by rotating my chair. It groaned against the floor. They all looked at me sharply, almost like they were conjoined at the neck—Haeshin’s neck to Jaebong’s and Jaebong’s to Sangmin’s.

Finally, Chan said something defensive: “He’s a person. He needs to eat, too.”

“Yeah, but how can you be _that_ hungry?” Haeshin commented, folding his arms. He had been standing in between the other two boys and took a step forward. “I’m just amazed, that’s all.”

“I’m amazed that you’re this rude. Go be amazed somewhere else,” I shooed them, flicking my hand in another direction.

The three guys turned thick-skinned and began walking away. As a last goodbye, Jaebong tried explaining, “We were just wondering!” and put his hand on Haeshin’s back as if to guide him away. It didn’t make a difference though because when I looked back at Jeongin, he was holding his head in his hands.

“Eff them,” Chan said to him.

I nodded, “Yeah. It’s lunch period. What were those guys expecting anyway?”

“You know what? I bet it’s this stupid chip,” Chan suggested, looking from Jeongin to me and back again. “One of the startup side effects is loss of appetite. Those are the guys that didn’t believe us when we posted that PSA, so they wouldn’t know anyway.”

“That sounds about right,” I agreed.

“I don’t care,” Jeongin uttered, standing up from his seat. “I hate this fucking school.”

“Hey, where you going?” I asked when he started storming off, but I received no response.

“Probably the bathroom, by the looks of it,” Chan told me, raising his brows towards the two trays of food occupying Jeongin’s table space.  
I looked at him with my eyes narrowed and my fists balled up. “How could you say that right now?”

“What?”

“I’m going after Jeongin. And for the love of God, eat something.” I stood up, shaking my head at his lack of sensitivity.

By the time I got out of my seat—it was tough because someone from the previous lunch period had spilled juice or something else sticky on the floor under my chair—Jeongin had already escaped my field of vision; he must have been on a mission to get out of the cafeteria, was walking so fast. On my way after him, my phone vibrated again, signaling a text message.

 **Han Squirrel, 11:47 //** What jus happened bro

 **Me //** Long story short, the chips turned everyone into judgy assholes and they started attacking Jeongin for eating a lot.

 **Han Squirrel //** Damn

 **Han Squirrel //** Where did you guys go just now?

 **Me //** I’m in the hall lookin for him. Chan didn’t want to come

 **Han Squirrel //** Where is he then

 **Me //**?

 **Han Squirrel //** He’s not at ur table

 **Me //** Well then idk

I put my phone away and quickened my pace because I heard footsteps around the bend in the hall. I couldn’t find Jeongin anywhere. When the footsteps ebbed away, I grabbed for my phone again, but it turned out that I didn’t need to because Jeongin showed his face from around a different corner, appearing to have heard me scrambling around in the hall.

“There you are,” I said to him. “What’s going on?”

“You tell me,” Jeongin shrugged. “Chan’s being a dick, whether he knows it or not, and so is literally everybody else. Except you. I’m afraid to talk to any of the other guys in case they’re messed up too. Seriously, is the water poisonous around here or something?”

“Did you hear what Chan said right before you left? He was probably right, you know,” I said. “About the chips making everyone go crazy and stupid. So the other guys are probably fine.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t affect _me_ one bit,” Jeongin told me, taking his blazer off and tossing it over his shoulder like he were posing for a dramatic photoshoot. “ _I_ don’t have a chip. I’m not crazy and stupid. I have feelings, you know. I don’t deserve this.”

“I know,” I frowned. “But I still don’t get it. This never bothered you in the past.”

“That’s because the only ones who picked on me were you guys!” he exclaimed, and suddenly the puzzle pieces clicked into place. “I knew I’d get over Chan acting all douchey and ‘mechanized,’ but when those guys came up to us, it felt like I was on my journey towards starring in ‘My 600 Pound Life.’ And I _never_ feel bad about eating a lot. I just can’t take it, Jin.”

“Sorry, man,” I mumbled, reaching my hand out and planting it on his left shouler. I felt awkward having my arm outstretched, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“And you know what else?” he asked but didn’t give me time to answer. “I’ve been thinking about dropping out. Too many things have sent me over the edge. I’m old enough, too.”

“Jeongin—”

“Deanette wants me to be independent? I’ll show her what independent means. I’m gonna do it, Hyunjin.”

“Wait!” I interjected. I realized my efforts to calm him weren’t enough and amped them up: “You’re the brightest out of all of us! You’re taking senior classes! You can’t throw your life away just yet!”

“Then I’ll transfer,” Jeongin negotiated, and I almost detected a break in his high-pitched voice. “Woojin’s the smart one, not me. I’m just friends with you because I didn’t have anywhere to sit in chem last year. I’m a junior anyway.”

“Who cares if you’re a junior? You’re my best friend, whether I met you in chem or not,” I argued. Next, I made my voice quieter to ensure that he knew I was being sincere. “Jeongin, I’d rather you transfer than drop out, but give it some thought before you make any decisions. And don’t get your hopes up, either—people pay good money to get into Seoul Independent.”

“Money well spent,” Jeongin said sarcastically. I shrugged my shoulders and chuckled a little, knowing he was right. “I want Chan back, man.”

“I know,” I said. “Me too.”

Jeongin nodded his head at me and gestured towards the cafeteria, so I took my hand off his shoulder and he put his blazer back on. I noticed a damp stain on the folds of the collar and pointed at it, but he silenced me with his hand.

“Milk spill. I know.” I just laughed and followed him back to the cafeteria. Again, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I took the risk of looking at my message:

 **CHAN!!, 11:54 //** So I’m a dick now?

I couldn’t figure out how or even when he heard us say that. My excuse for not answering him was that the bell rang just then and I’d be in deep trouble if I were caught texting in the halls.

-

“[easy](https://youtu.be/yTKQsfVBi3k)” - sky ferreira


	10. you've got a friend in me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw - mention of blood, surgery, vomit, etc (minimal).

“Ah!” cried Dongsun at the very end of English period. Heads turned, but Dongsun had his eyes closed. I backhanded his upper arm so he’d shut up.

Effective yesterday, Deanette announced that the bell system was suddenly obsolete and would no longer be in use, but she didn’t propose any replacements. At first, I was pissed off that I’d have to actually pay attention to the time during class instead of using the bell as my alarm clock, but then I considered that I’d maybe get more sleep at night if I didn’t spend the last five minutes of every period snoozing, so I got over it.

“What was that?” I asked Dongsun, sliding my laptop into my backpack as soon as I noticed all the other students packing their items up.

“My neck,” he said, flashing me a disgruntled expression while he rubbed his neck right under the collar of his blazer. “Something zapped me. Might’ve been my chip.”

“So glad I got out of that,” I answered subconsciously, shaking my head as I refocused on my pencil pouch. There was an open blue pen poking out of its meshy seams, which I almost accidentally scribbled on myself with. “You okay, though?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “The same thing happened in the last few periods, too. Can’t help but wonder if I’m being slowly electrocuted to death.”

“Take a shower,” I teased. “It’ll go quicker.”

“Ha ha, funny. It really hurts.”

“Take it up with Miss Kimmy, not me.”

I walked briskly out of the room, picking up my latest exam on the way out the door so that I could show my parents the shiny sticker I received for earning an A. I wished that were my reality, but instead the gigantic B-plus was written in dull blue pen ink. I could already picture the test resting peacefully in my kitchen’s garbage can.

Shoving the paper into my backpack, not worrying about the creases, I lingered outside of the classroom and waited for Jeongin to come out. We had been placed at opposite ends of the room for “causing a racket,” though that was just one time when I kept taunting him about the food stuck in his braces and he pretended to throw a fit—as if he cared about that.

“I can’t believe this,” Jeongin said as he walked out of the room next to last, his eyes boring holes in his test paper. He made no particularly positive or negative expression until finally he turned his paper around, only for me to see the sticker I’d been fantasizing about. “I got my first one-hundred!”

“Aye, good job, man!” I grinned. “I thought you’ve gotten hundreds before, though.”

“Not since before ‘Mechanize Me,’” he explained, and I nodded in acknowledgement. It truly felt as though life before the program was eons ago. “After that whole spiel, I thought I’d never be able to focus in class again. Nature has proved me wrong yet again!” He pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.

“That’s awesome!” I told him sincerely. “I pulled a B. Not my finest.”

“Not too shabby,” Jeongin encouraged me, holding his palm out for a high-five. I obliged.

“So Dongsun told me the chip shocked him today,” I contributed randomly. We were probably going to be late to the buses by the looks of our careless pace, but we could always call Felix last minute—in fact, I would have preferred to ride with Felix than with a bunch of noisy guys I didn’t like.

“Shocked me too,” Jeongin said, clearly without thinking twice. He drew his phone out of his pocket and began scrolling miles with his thumb, almost stepping on my shoelace as we went to the bus doors.

“No, I meant it literally shocked him in the neck,” I told him. “He said it hurt pretty bad and it happened during all periods today.”

“That’s odd,” Jeongin said, squinting at me out of confusion. “Can we hitch a ride with Felix? I’m sick of the bus.”

“You read my mind.” I watched as he sent a message to our good driver friend and we made a beeline for the parking lot, avoiding the buses entirely by going out a different exit door. When we got there, Jeongin held the door open for me and I passed through, but he didn’t follow immediately behind me.

“Hey,” someone said as I turned around to see what the delay was all about; it wasn’t Jeongin, which I was irked to find out, but instead it was Dongsun. He had to have been following us because I knew he rode the bus home on most days. Maybe he overheard me talking about him.

“What’s up?” Jeongin asked.

“You guys really don’t have chips?” Dongsun asked, nodding his head in greeting. He looked at me with wide, hopeful eyes; it sounded as if he were confirming a rumor that had circulated around school, but I knew if anyone had spread rumors about the nonagon, we would have heard about it. This, to me, added to all the reasons Dongsun was losing his reputation as an intellectual.

“Yeah, we really don’t,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders casually. “Why?”

“I was wondering if you guys could help me get mine out,” he said. My face froze in place.

“How do you expect us to do that?” Jeongin asked, folding his arms. My phone beeped but I didn’t look at it.

“It’s only a centimeter or two deep,” Dongsun informed us, fanning his forearms out as if to convince us he was onto something. “I know your good friend Chan has one, too. If all goes well with me, maybe you can get the chip out of him. And trust me, I know you all want it out of him. What do you say?”

Jeongin and I exchanged a glance and possibly some telepathic messages as well because we both gestured for Dongsun to follow us to Felix’s car. We weren’t exactly sure why he wanted  _ us  _ to get his chip out of him—maybe it was because no one else in the school was openly against the “Mechanize Me” program—but we agreed that it was worth considering at the very least. We finally had a lead on getting Chan back. Luckily, Felix agreed to drive Dongsun home as soon as Jeongin told him the intriguing idea, and during the brief car ride home, I group-FaceTimed the members of the nonagon who weren’t in the car. Not everyone picked up, but enough people did for me to make the announcement.

“Why do you have to talk to all of them at once?” Dongsun whispered while I waited for my phone to buffer.

“It’s how we do things,” I whispered back, but he just made a face at me, pointing out the inconvenience of calling six people at once. I was just used to doing things in groups, having so many tight-knit friends.

“What’s up, Jin?” said Jisung as soon as my WiFi decided to cooperate.

“Hey guys,” I said. “I’m in the car with Felix, Jeongin, and Ko Dongsun.”

Without uttering a hello, Minho asked, “Why’s Ko Dongsun there?” His voice sounded weirded out, but Dongsun didn’t bat a defensive eye from what I could tell peripherally.

“He said something interesting to Jeongin and me today,” I explained, scanning the screen for any changes of expressions. “He said he wants us to get his microchip out.”

“That’s not happening,” Minho commented.

“Gross!” someone else interjected in agreement.

“Why would he ask  _ us _ ?” asked Chan suddenly. I felt a guilty pang in my stomach, thinking his voice might’ve been so snappy because Jeongin and I called him a dick, and now we were signing him up for a risky procedure; regardless, I looked at Dongsun, who was sitting next to me, and handed him my phone so he could explain it to the guys himself. After his thought process had been verbalized, I could only hear weary feedback from Woojin and Jisung at first, but once Dongsun mentioned that Chan could have the same thing done to him, everyone jumped onboard. I was surprised at how quickly their collective opinion changed—but mine had changed fast too, so I didn’t mention it.

“What do you think?” Dongsun asked, his eyes visibly darting from face to face on my relatively minuscule phone screen. “Are you in?”

“I’m in,” said Chan. No one else verbally pledged their status of in-ness, but Chan spoke for all of us. As long as he was willing, so was everybody else. It was only his decision anyway. “Felix, I assume it’s at your place, right? Since we always hang there?”

“What, tonight?” Felix asked. “I mean, sure…I guess my basement will be free today since Rachel’s in Australia on business.”

“What kinda business does Rachel do?” Jisung asked through the line.

“Doesn’t matter. Everybody be at my place in thirty.”

I somehow convinced my parents I would be working on a project with Felix, even though the only class we had together was Korean and we normally weren’t allowed to work with each other. My lie was underway, though, just so that I could stay at Felix’s as long as I needed to. The others worked things out with their parents between then and thirty minutes later, when everybody on the FaceTime call was instructed to be at Felix’s house. Changbin and Seungmin didn’t make it because they didn’t answer the call, and Minho couldn’t persuade his parents to let him go to Felix’s on a weekday—they must have doubted him.

Something dark in me sensed that Minho’s parents’ instinct was for the better.

Woojin, being the most interested in the medical field, reluctantly volunteered to do the procedure on Dongsun, but only if he wouldn’t be blamed for any lingering pain. I knew he only stepped up because if any of the others offered to operate, Dongsun would wind up infected or worse. After that realization, I tensed up. Talk of surgery was coursing around Felix’s cold, dreary basement, and I had been self-diagnosed with White Coat Syndrome. It felt like we were in the hospital, performing experiments on a poor high schooler who had had a microchip forced into his neck tissue. Woojin, Felix, and Dongsun ventured off to the kitchen to get “supplies,” which I did not want to think about. Jeongin quickly picked up on how uneasy I was becoming.

“Are you gonna be able to handle this?” he asked me, keeping his voice down low so the rest of the guys didn’t overhear. We were all finding places to sit in Rachel’s living space, which was covered in brown pug fur. I just nodded at Jeongin, directing my attention to my phone screen until Woojin, Felix, and Dongsun returned from upstairs. I sat down on Rachel’s bed between Jeongin and Jisung.

“Uh, why don’t you take your shirt off and sit on top of Rachel’s desk,” Felix suggested, rubbing the back of his neck as he, too, realized how stupid this idea probably was. Dongsun followed the instructions, sitting down with his blazer and his button-up folded across his lap. He cracked his knuckles, reminding a couple of the others to do so, too.

“What’s this here for?” Woojin asked, twisting Dongsun around by the shoulders so we could all see the imperfect red cross drawn onto his neck. Felix adjusted Rachel’s desktop lamp so it beamed down on that cross.

“‘X’ marks the spot,” Dongsun mumbled, his eyes shut very tightly. I could see beads of sweat forming on his hairline from all the way across the room.

Then, Chan squished between Jisung and me and put his arm over my shoulder. “Do you think it’ll hurt?” he whispered, eyeing me worriedly. I shrugged.

“It’ll feel like a papercut,” I assured him, but deep down, I was scared for my dear friend. Woojin was no doctor. “If anything, there’s…alcohol.”

“I’m not drinking alcohol,” Chan said skeptically, taking a deep breath. Jisung had overheard my suggestion, so he brought it up to Felix, probably in case drinking would make Dongsun more comfortable. (I wouldn’t be surprised if it did, knowing he liked to vape.)

“I’m sure Rach has something,” Felix said, eager to walk away from Dongsun and Woojin.

“For sterilization or numbing?” Dongsun asked. “Ah, what the hell. Both.”

“What the hell,” Felix repeated in a celebratory manner, crossing the room to what appeared to be a filing cabinet. Digging through it, he announced, “And don’t worry, we grabbed some isopropyl alcohol while we were upstairs. Rach has some peach soju—are you good with that?”

“Yes!” Dongsun cheered. All of us whipped our heads around and eyeballed him strangely, which I almost chuckled at but stifled it. “What?”

“You like peach soju?” Jisung asked.

“Are we all that surprised?” Jeongin commented, earning snickers, even one from Dongsun himself. Felix handed him the green bottle and then Dongsun offered Chan a sip, but he turned it down.

“Try and relax,” Woojin said suddenly, turning towards Dongsun. I immediately bowed my head and shielded my eyes, standing up from my post on Rachel’s mattress. Seeking escape, I went in the direction opposite of the stairs, trying not to get distracted by Rachel’s dirty laundry or extensive perfume collection. I was feeling nauseous already.

“Hyunjin?” called Jeongin from behind me. I didn’t answer, just held my hand up and grabbed my stomach with the other, hoping it was signal enough. I knew what to expect. The noises in the room reduced to only Dongsun’s staggered breaths, and I could’ve sworn I even heard Woojin’s doubtful thoughts as if they were my own. Jisung said something softly but in a restive tone of voice. I could hear the liquid in the soju bottle swishing around as Dongsun tipped the bottle up and up and up. It wasn’t entirely full when Felix first gave it to him, and it was certainly nearing empty at this point.

“You good?” said Jeongin, closer to me this time. I turned around and looked him in the eye. “Whoa, you’re pale.”

“I’m gonna throw up again,” I warned him. “You better leave.”

“Gosh,” Jeongin grimaced, but instead of turning away, he reached his arms out and cocked his head towards the staircase. “Well let’s go to the bathroom then. Come on, I don’t wanna ruin my uniform.”

“Than—” I started, but I caught a glimpse of the surgery in motion over Jeongin’s shoulder. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and felt my gag reflexes working up and my mouth filled with saliva. I let go of Jeongin and made a dash for the closest door, whether it led to a bathroom or not. It turned out to be a walk-in closet, which I learned a few seconds too late. Certainly no one would want to walk in there anytime soon.

With a bitter taste in my mouth, I stupidly returned to the scene of the surgery and saw that Dongsun made it out alive with a relatively joyful face, though that may have been because he swigged a whole half-bottle of peach soju. Now Woojin was attempting stitches. I took a seat on the bed next to Chan and this time Felix, who had taken Jeongin’s previous seat.

“One down,” Woojin said exasperatedly. “Chan, are you ready?”

“Wait,” he said. “Dongsun, how do you feel?”

“Fine,” said the loopy teenager. You could tell he wasn’t  _ quite _ hammered yet. I looked at Chan with worry written all over my forehead. “It was a little pinchy, that’s all! Woojin’s really good!”

“Okay,” Chan said. He wore a look of disgust on his face but still proceeded to unbutton his shirt, his eyes never leaving Dongsun, whose shoulder had been stained red in the minutes I was gone. That discoloration was disturbing.

“Guys, I have to go,” I announced, feeling a pat on my back while I stood up. I wasn’t ready to witness another bloody operation.

“Hyunjin, wait,” Chan practically begged, standing up with me. Jisung kindly let Dongsun sit in his spot. I looked at Chan, and he looked as if he were ready to cry. He had an extremely low pain tolerance, so I was more worried for his current well-being than the aftermath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing. Why are you leaving?”

“I-I threw up,” I told him. “I can’t be in the room or I’ll do it again. I really will.”

“I need you here,” Chan mumbled, his shoulders slumping down. All eyes were on us, even Dongsun’s bloodshot ones. “Please stay here, Hyunjin. You owe me one.” So he was  _ still _ salty about being called a dick.

I looked down at Jeongin, who shrugged helplessly at me, implying that it was my decision whether I’d stay or not. I couldn’t resist Chan’s frightened, glossy eyes though and forced myself to remember that he had depression and for me to leave would crush him internally. “Fine,” I said, jutting my chin towards Rachel’s desk to get him to sit down on it.

“It’ll be okay,” Woojin said, patting Chan on the shoulder but looking at me. Chan took his shirt and blazer off the rest of the way and wrapped his hand around my wrist so that I couldn’t get away even if I tried. At this point, I was afraid I’d barf right into his wound. I was sure our collective sweat would be enough for the both of us to lose grip at some point though.

My eyes wandered elsewhere while Woojin began to sterilize the patch of reddish scar tissue with some rubbing alcohol. I noticed there was no more soju left, but knowing Chan, he wouldn’t want to drink it even if there had been any left. I was secretly hoping  _ I  _ could be the one to finish the bottle. When I turned my head a different way, something glaring under the lamplight caught my eye: it was Dongsun’s implant, bloody, small, and metallic. That puny thing had cost us all too much blood, sweat, and tears—the price I paid too much of was vomit.

I was probably dehydrated by now, but somehow my eyes produced thin tears and I audibly whimpered, “Chan, let me go.”

After hesitating for a couple seconds, he did as I said and I ran upstairs to empty my stomach once again, this time in a place I knew for sure was a bathroom.

-

“[tunnelovision](https://youtu.be/wUutbjBxKTo)” - jesse rutherford


	11. man's best friend or chan's best friend?

It had been three weeks since the two surgeries took place. In that time, I regained all seven pounds I lost from constantly regurgitating, which my mom was pleased to find out after suspecting that I had developed bulimia. She made me watch videos of coping mechanisms; to be fair, she was starting a new migraine medication that she wasn’t yet accustomed to and it made her hypersensitive.

The nonagon was doing well in terms of adjusting to “Mechanize Me.” Chan was still recovering—not physically, since the green thread stitches, sourced from one of Felix’s old hoodies, had only caused a bigger lump of scar tissue to form on his neck. His mood swings were no longer coming and going, but he seemed to be in a permanent low. I kept telling myself, _It’ll wear off soon_.

He and I were chatting and walking around his neighborhood since the weather was so nice out, being the middle of spring and all. It was around four o’clock when he suddenly grew silent. Lately at school, he seemed to do that a lot. I always wondered what he was thinking whenever he zoned out but never had the chance to ask him.

“Chan? I asked you a question,” I said, sticking my hands in my pockets and turning my head towards him. His neck was bent ninety degrees so his eyes were focused on the sidewalk beneath us.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch it,” he said.

“I was just asking how it went with your parents.”

“Oh, that? It went fine,” he shook his head, clasping his hands together and finally looking me in the eye. “They agreed to let me talk to my doctor more, but therapy is still in question.”

“That’s good,” I acknowledged. “And how’s the neck?”

“Much better,” Chan smiled. “I’m starting to realize how bad the chip was for me. I feel a lot better. I mean, the damn thing made me confess my little secret.”

“Ah,” I responded, too uncomfortable to laugh along with him over the matter of his mental illness. I decided that since we were being intimate, I might as well bring my feelings to light: “I gotta say, I think it made you act different.”

“How so?”

“You zone out a lot,” I told him softly. He sighed. “You don’t laugh as much. It’s noticeable.”

“I guess I’m less focused on concealing how I feel now that you know about it,” he reflected. “It’s in the air now—at least to some of you. It’s like I came out, but not as gay. It’s kinda relieving.”

Despite his interesting choice of analogy, I asked him, “When were you planning on telling me? Or the rest of the guys?”

My rapid query almost cut off his last sentence. He raised his brows in consideration and squinted up at the sky, probably so he didn’t have to look at me while he contemplated. “I didn’t really want to,” he confessed. “They don’t _need_ to know, do they? I’m still me.”

“What happens when they accidentally find out?” I followed up. “When they realize you’re _not_ you? And don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to sound threatening. Felix and I found out accidentally, so it’s completely possible that everyone else will.”

“Can’t I just enjoy things as they are without them knowing?” he pouted. “They aren’t gonna notice. These past two months have gone over their heads.”

“Do what you want,” I sighed, “but I don’t want them to get upset if— _if_ —they find out before you’re ready to tell them. I mean, we’re not really a jealous bunch, but you know where I’m coming from, right?”

“Yeah.”

I simply stated, “Well I’m glad the weight is off your shoulders. Sorta.”

“Thanks. And how’s the, uh, puking thing?” he reciprocated, seeming unclear as to what to call my weak stomach. I was thankful that he changed the subject, even though I was the one who brought it up.

“I prefer not to think about it,” I warned him. “But I haven’t been _that_ nervous in weeks. I’m fine.”

“Oh, nice!”

Chan and I crossed paths with a weird-looking slug on the pavement, so we ogled at it for a couple of minutes and took pictures before deciding to go back to his house. It was beginning to drizzle out; even though there was a layer of clouds hiding the sky and the air was getting draftier by the second, I didn’t expect there to be rain. I was too busy focusing on things like Chan’s health to notice the weather. We had to hurry inside.

“Can’t wait for school to end,” he said wishfully as we jogged indoors. He lived in a nice one-story home that I would have loved to consider my own. “I’m sick of being stressed over extracurriculars. I’m turning into a dork!”

“Right?” I shook my head. “You know, Jeongin told me he wants to transfer. Or worse, he might drop out.”

“Was he serious?”

“Yeah, he was serious,” I sighed. As we talked, we wandered into the kitchen and Chan picked out a bag of chips for us to share. He mumbled that he had to go take his meds, so I took the chips with me to his bedroom while he disappeared into the medicine cabinet. I heard the rattling of some pills.

He called from the other room, “What’s the final verdict?”

“Dunno yet. I hope he stays with us.”

Chan came back with his phone in his hand and reached his arm out for the TV remote. He had a flatscreen attached to his navy blue wall. I threw it at him and it hit him in the stomach, so he doubled over, faking the extent of the pain he felt, and lay on the hardwood floor as he surfed through channels. I giggled at his dramatic show.

“Did you hear? Changbin just got a puppy,” Chan told me, scrolling through movies on Netflix.

“No, really?” I answered. “We should go over and see it since your house is so boring.”

“Shut up,” Chan groaned, throwing the remote back at me from his wonderful vantage point of the floor. It hit me in the shoulder, and the battery pack popped open. “I could stand to go and see a dog though, if you were being serious. I’m not allowed to have one.”

“Me neither, but that’s ‘cause I live in an apartment,” I sighed. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

Changbin’s home was within walking distance from Chan’s, so we got there fast. The rain hadn’t picked up much since we first went inside. Changbin already had Felix and Jeongin over, and he welcomed us through the white front door, leading us toward the naturally lit sunroom facing his back yard. It was bright even with the cloudy sky above us.

“Why’d you randomly get a dog?” I asked as we maneuvered through Changbin’s bright house.

“My mom was feeling generous I guess,” Changbin shrugged. “Sohui was lonely anyway, so we got her a friend.” Sohui was his old tabby cat, who was more dog-like than feline. For lack of a better term, Sohui was a “people person.”

When we got to the sunroom, Jeongin was sitting on the cement floor with a black puppy standing on edge three feet beside him. I looked around in search of Felix, and he was crouched in the corner of the room, probably afraid of having an allergic reaction.

Squatting on the ground next to Jeongin, Changbin ran a hand down the dog’s long, visible spine and proudly declared, “His name’s Anubis.”

“Ah-nyu-bih-seu?” I repeated, my brows raising subconsciously. I sat down between Jeongin and Changbin, waving at the two other guys as Chan excused himself to go to the bathroom.

“No, _Anubis_. You have to say it in English or else it just sounds dumb.” I reached out and patted the dog graciously; he sniffed my fingers and then rammed his snout against them, demanding more contact. Felix was visibly jealous, but if he so much as _touched_ the thing whose fur was inexplicably smooth, he’d break out in hives. I could tell he was having trouble breathing already just from being so close, but he was pushing through his asthmatic response because this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him. _Go Felix_ , I thought to myself.

Jeongin chimed in with a question on everyone’s behalf. “What even is Anubis? That doesn’t sound like English.”

“Anubis is the Egyptian god of embalming and the dead,” Changbin stated. It made sense that he chose this name because he planned to major in ancient mythology and archaeology. I admired him for being so passionate. “He was believed to watch over the dead in the Underworld. Thought the name was fitting for a black dog that was found protecting his brother.”

“Aww, you separated him from his brother?” Jeongin pouted.  
  
“No, his brother had passed away,” Changbin frowned, then gestured towards Anubis. “Hence the trust issues.”

“What trust issues? _Ah-nyu-bih-seu_ seems to like me,” I scoffed as the puppy batted its scrawny little paws against the heel of my hand. “Poor guy, though. You picked a good name.”

“ _Ah-noo-bit_ ,” Jeongin attempted, still failing at the pronunciation as much as I did. “ _Ae-nyu-bitchy_.”

“He really does like you,” Changbin stated, folding his arms across his wide chest as he observed Anubis’s friendliness towards me. “Hmm.”

“Quit it, Hyunjin! You’re making Changbin jealous!” Felix exclaimed from the corner of the patio he exiled himself to. From there he was recording the interaction between Anubis and me. He wore a big grin on his face, but he appeared to be right about Changbin, so I lifted my hand off the tiny pet.

“I’m back,” Chan announced, wiping his hands on his pants as he came into the sunroom through a sliding glass door. “All this rain made really have to take a piss. So tell me about this little guy.”

“His name’s Anubis…” Changbin repeated the introduction process, and I watched as Chan’s face glowed like a nightlight. Maybe he needed a puppy of his own; I hadn’t seen him this invested in anything in over two months. Felix and I exchanged glances from across the patio, knowing that Chan was in a good place right now. Jeongin was even smiling as he watched Chan play with Anubis’s white-speckled paws.

We brought the puppy indoors as soon as it started thundering. The rain was loud and drumlike against the glass ceiling of the sunroom, and Anubis was shaking like a leaf. Changbin left to find us some snacks to eat as Chan tried convincing the puppy to lay in his lap. We were all sitting on the floor—even Felix—because Anubis and Sohui weren’t allowed on the furniture, and we preferred their company over comfortable seating. The puppy trotted anxiously between Chan, Jeongin, and me, ultimately curling into a ball right next to Felix, who was purposely sitting out of our way.

“Someone move it,” Felix whined, pulling all his limbs closer to his chest. I narrowed my brows at him.

“‘It?’ Are you allergic to dogs or _afraid_ of them?” I asked him, and Chan began to laugh. I smiled at him and Jeongin and then brought my attention back to Felix.

“I really am allergic to them,” he told us. When Anubis stood up in his little panicked state—the poor thing—Felix launched himself up off the floor completely and backed up into the corner. “...And afraid of them.”

“Aww,” Jeongin said, clapping his hands as Anubis got up and followed Felix around the back of the sofa. “He’s chasing you!”

“Fuck! Stop it!” Felix hollered, earning bouts of laughter from Chan, Jeongin, and me. Changbin came into the room carrying two large cartons of Goldfish crackers, throwing one directly at Jeongin and tossing the other into the center of the room. He laughed as soon as he saw that Felix was speed-walking the perimeter of the room with Anubis at his heel.

“Are you training my dog?” Changbin accused Felix.

“No, but _you_ should!” Felix yelled, finally resolving to hop over the couch and sit in the corner of it. Anubis not only wasn’t allowed up there, but he was also too small to hoist himself onto the cushions.

Changbin set up some PlayStation 3 game and gave us each a controller to play with. Even with the volume turned up relatively high, we could still hear the patter of rain in the sunroom one doorway over, and Anubis was restless at the noise. He sat down in my lap and made me crash my Grand Theft Auto car by mistake. Chan traded me his controller for the puppy so that I could be back in the game, and I gladly switched him because he was much happier having a little companion next to him. Felix even stopped complaining about the “horrible beast” that was upon us.

It was amazing to me what a wimpy little puppy could do to someone.

-

“[to be human](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM8Tm9ycGz4)” - marina


	12. madness luv

Changbin asked to sit with Jeongin and me the following Monday during lunch. Naturally, Chan was offended that he had been booted out of his seat for the thousandth time, but Changbin assured him it was because Felix and Woojin were sick of him wanted to hang out with Chan instead. That was obviously a cover up, but Chan seemed delighted enough to stop sulking.

“What was that for?” Jeongin asked as Changbin sat down beside me. He waited for Chan to get out of earshot before responding. Seemed suspicious, but that was just me.

“I’ve been thinking,” Changbin said. “You remember how Chan acted like a totally different person at my house on Friday after I showed him Anubis?”

“Yeah,” Jeongin said. I tilted my head to the side, thinking, _Does Changbin know he’s depressed?_

“I feel like it’s been _years_ since I’ve seen him that happy,” Changbin told us. He was only confirming my suspicion. “So I was thinking about giving him Anubis.”

“Wait, but he’s not allowed to have pets,” I pointed out. “His parents are real strict. You know that.”

“Figures,” Changbin frowned. “Maybe we can all get together while he’s not there and convince them to let him have a dog. You dig?”

“Sure, but I don’t see why it’s that deep,” Jeongin stated honestly. “It’s your dog, right? Why are you just _giving_ him away?”

“I don’t think you understand,” Changbin shook his head. “Look, guys. Don’t say anything to anybody, but for a little while now, I’ve been noticing something’s wrong with Chan. Jeongin, you told me how he got all sensitive on you in history and at lunch that one time—isn’t that reason enough?”

“Hey,” I chuckled awkwardly, my smile faltering because I wasn’t the greatest liar. “I don’t think we should just _assume_ something’s wrong with him. He’s normal.” I looked away as soon as I finished talking.

“Well I know he’s norm—” Changbin started, and then he did a double-take at me, cutting himself off momentarily. He saw through me.

“Changbin?” Jeongin asked.

“Do you guys know something I don’t?” Changbin asked quietly, lowering his head as he looked from me to Jeongin and back to me as if it made him look any less fishy. “Jin, why’re you looking at me like that?”  
  
“I-I know something,” I admitted after Jeongin shook his head. “But it’s not my secret to tell. You’ll have to figure it out on your own.”

“Does it have anything to do with this dog plan?” he asked. “Will it interfere?”

“No,” I shook my head, turning my eyes away so I would feel less tempted to disturb Chan’s privacy. “In fact, it makes your idea better. Let’s talk to Mrs. Bang soon.”

“Great!” Changbin exclaimed. Jeongin tapped the table right in front of my tray to get my attention. When I looked up at him, he narrowed his eyes curiously, but I didn’t let myself reveal anything. I looked away again.

“Look, guys. I wasn’t supposed to know about this, so that’s why I’m not telling you.” I left it at that and handed Jeongin my banana. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore.

After lunch period, during which Changbin and Jeongin kept flashing me dissatisfied glances, I had some trouble focusing in class. It had been at least a month since the bell system was done away with, yet I still felt the urge to doze off at the end of my classes. Sometimes Jeongin was asleep too—we couldn’t help but be bored to death in calculus.

Gradually, other students came to drop heavy textbooks on my desk when I was dozing off, not to appease our angry teachers but to condemn my signature end-of-period-napping. I blamed everyones’ prudish tattling on the microchips that had been implanted in April.

And thankfully, Chan and Dongsun were no longer the rule-following, self-censoring freaks that we shared classes with, all due to Woojin’s surgical skills. Everyone else, however….

Despite my calculus class being a relatively interesting group of people, I guess this time I fell asleep because we had spent the entire period working on an explanatory slideshow presentation and I had better things to dream about. As it turns out, Jeongin and I shared the same opinion and we had our heads down like preschoolers during a tornado drill. The reason I knew he too had fallen asleep was that when I woke up, the lights were off and the entire class was missing except for him and me.

I shook his shoulder violently with my eyes glued on the analogue clock above the door. The period wasn’t over yet, so where was everybody?

“What?” Jeongin groaned, sitting up as soon as he realized it was me and not a hardcover textbook startling him awake. “What time is it?”

“It’s only twelve thirty,” I said, utterly confused.

“Where’d everyone go?” he asked. I stood up and put my backpack on, also noting that all the other guys had taken theirs along to the destination unbeknownst to Jeongin and me.

“Shit,” I said. I suddenly remembered the morning announcements. “We had an assembly today. Grab your stuff.”

“Assembly? What assembly?” Jeongin questioned as I forced him to walk fast with me towards the door. The hallway was silent and uncomfortable when we stepped into it.

“It’s that health presentation on the effects of drugs on a microchip,” I said, recalling all my failed responsibilities even though it was too late. Attending the assembly was at the top of the list. Wonderful.

I was angry with myself. Now that the administrators started taking attendance at school functions, including assemblies and lunch period, I was obligated to be there, and I let myself down by forgetting. I pushed Jeongin into a jog because I had gotten in trouble enough times that school year and didn’t care to go through it again; Jeongin didn’t need this tardy added to his reputation either.

Surprisingly, we crossed paths with Jisung in the hall too, who was equally as panicked as I was. “Thank god!” he said when he registered our faces. “Where’d everyone go?”

“The assembly!” I informed him, pointing him towards the auditorium. Jisung’s eyes rolled back into his head and he started to jog alongside me. We were just a hallway away now.  
“Do you think the rest of the guys made it on time?” Jeongin asked, panting from the exertion. Running with backpacks was difficult, but luckily the auditorium doors were just yards ahead of us. We slowed our pace ever so slightly.

I swallowed hard and stood up straight, contemplating over Jeongin’s question. Woojin, Changbin, and Felix definitely made it on time because they were the most dogged out of all of us, meaning they wouldn’t sleep in class no matter how exhausted they were. Minho was questionably attentive during class, as far as I could remember based on his anecdotes, because he was practically born at risk of getting in trouble by strict teachers. Chan and Seungmin were unpredictable—they were normally such good guys, but Chan could have a rebellious fit every once in a while, and Seungmin showed his true colors for the first time a month ago when Mrs. Choi caught him using his cellphone at lunch.

“Sure, they probably did.”

Jisung pushed those big wooden doors open for us a little louder than he should have, and we were immediately greeted by a pair of tall adults striding in sync towards us. We hadn’t even entered the auditorium and we were already doomed. It felt like we had just approached our jail cell, where we were collectively stabbed in the stomach by a knife our cellmate slid through the bars, and we were unprepared for such a terrible fate given our current poor state of being. We were basically captives here at Seoul Independent, so how much worse could a stab wound in the abdomen be?

This was my way of comforting myself.

“Very late, boys.” The voice was daunting, but I couldn’t see who it was at first because the auditorium was so dark in contrast to the hallway. Soon, Deanette came into our view, accompanied by the beloved Mr. Jeon. Our favorite disciplinarians. _Together._

“I suppose none of you have a pass,” Mr. Jeon assumed, folding his arms across his chest. “Why is it that every time a red flag comes up, one of you boys is responsible?”

“We’re sorry,” I said, my hands beginning to shake intensely.

“You have apologized and apologized, but unfortunately, there is a point at which _words_ are simply not strong enough to reform your wrongdoings,” Deanette told us, her wispy eyebrows arched with fake pity for us; the rest of her cold, beige face remained unfriendly. I could’ve sworn she was an artificial intelligence. Jeongin stepped closer to me as soon as Deanette’s message was conveyed. “This way, gentlemen.”

I had never felt so threatened at school before.

She and Mr. Jeon pushed through us and headed in the direction of what I could only assume was hell, or the Gulag, or a pit of needles like in _Saw II_. I looked at Jisung and then at Jeongin, and both of them were frozen in fear. Then I nudged them in the arms, only so we wouldn’t get into deeper trouble for not following orders. Off we went.

The only sounds I heard for a while were our footsteps and my own heartbeat. The office—I could only assume that was where we were headed—was in the front lobby, which was not far at all; the walk just seemed prolonged because I desperately didn’t want to go. When we got there, Mr. Jeon held the door open for Deanette, Jisung, Jeongin, and me and followed closely behind me as we traveled into parts of the office I didn’t even know existed.

We entered Deanette’s office at last. I’d been in her office before, always curious about that door beside her filing cabinet, but what I didn’t realize was that this was just a stage office. She didn’t have her degrees hanging on the walls in there or even a name tag standee. We passed through this stage office into a slightly bigger, darker, colder square room where Deanette’s degrees really did hang, where she even had a name tag. It occurred to me that I only knew her as Deanette and this might reveal something about her. If only my vision wasn’t so blurry out of fear, I’d be able to read it.

“Please sit,” Deanette insisted, click-clacking around the big mahogany desk until she got to her own seat. We had to look around for chairs, finding that there were four pushed up against the wall that the door was on. We sat down in the order we were standing—Jisung, me, Jeongin—and Mr. Jeon left the room.

“Look, Mrs.—Dr.—” Jisung began, knowing he couldn’t call her Deanette to her face. He stumbled over his words and she glowered at him, tipping over that name tag standee and revealing that it said “Min Hee Jin.” Why did she disclose it to us of all people?

“Dr. Min,” Jisung said shakily, “we didn’t mean to be late. I-It's not my first time being late, but I know it’s theirs. Please let them go.” It definitely _wasn’t_ our first time being late, but I couldn’t bring myself to contradict him.

“How gallant of you, Mr. Han,” Deanette smiled slightly, leaning back in her chair and folding her legs in a ladylike manner; “but I stand by my word. Anything you say will not do justice to your continuous misconduct, so I have no choice but to resort to new methods of punishment—for all three of you.”

After she finished talking, the door handle jingled and Mr. Jeon returned to the room, this time pulling a machine on wheels behind him. It didn’t click in my mind at first, but then I recognized it as the mechanical arm Mr. Heo had operated during the chip drive.

My heart skipped a beat. I was already sweating bullets, stomach churning.

“All we have to do is push the button,” Mr. Jeon smiled at his boss. Jeongin and Jisung both put their hands on my knees, remembering how I reacted the last time I was in the presence of that arm.

“Mr. Jeon,” Jeongin suddenly spoke up, visibly in a panic. Couldn’t be me. “Why are you doing this? A-and how did you know—”

“Silence,” Deanette bellowed, steam coming out of her ears. Mr. Jeon walked across my view of the headmaster and dragged the fourth chair on the wall into the space between us and Deanette’s desk. “We will begin with Hyunjin. You, young man, are the quietest among your hypersensitive friends—I expect that you stay that way.”

 _Just try not to anger it_ , I thought to myself. Mr. Jeon gestured toward the chair as if he were selling me a comfortable sofa, hoping I would try it out right in the store. I turned to Jeongin and whispered, “I’m gonna puke.” I could already feel it chugging around in my stomach.

“What was that?” Mr. Jeon asked.

“Mr. Jeon, please let him go! He’s sick!” Jeongin cried after my notion. Jisung learned quickly what I had told Jeongin and the two started babbling out pleas to release me or to have them go before me. Those guys were so good to me. I shut my eyes momentarily and leaned on my forearms, daring to break my posture just so that I felt less queasy. It didn’t work. I was struck with the idea that today was the day I’d be chipped, tracked for life with no say whatsoever. This school really was dark.

“I said silence!” Deanette finally yelled again, standing up from her cushioned spinny chair. Placing both of her palms flat on her desktop, she eyed each of us individually and then Mr. Jeon and snuck a glance at the metal arm. “You three do not seem to grasp the reasons Seoul Independent has adopted the ‘Mechanize Me’ program. The point was to create a _better_ atmosphere on campus—believe me, boys, I know how much my pupils used to loathe this academy—and a better atmosphere can only be established when guidelines are _enforced_. That is why you and your fellow classmates have been experiencing some…side effects, for lack of a better word…which will ultimately result in cleaner, more diligent, and more deferential behaviors here on campus.

“Now, my colleagues and I can only fear what might have gone wrong with you and your brand of friends! Ever since the beginning of the school session, I have received numerous reports of faulty behavior coming from the nine of you. It was my duty to reduce these numbers, not only for you but for the entire upper class, so that our lovely underclassmen can follow in your footsteps, giving pride and dignity to the school name.

“I have trouble fathoming that you nine are _still_ causing disruptions in my beautifully tailor-made upper class. So, I have no other option than to straitjacket your constant inconveniences by means of pain. I am only starting with you three, whose tardiness is unacceptable after all of your other iniquities, but this is your only chance to warn your friends not to do as you have. _Now._ As I said, Mr. Jeon, I would like to start with the squeamish one.”

“See! Even you know he’s anxious! Look, Deanette, he’s about to throw up!” Jisung shouted, evidently losing his cool at the woman. He flailed his arms down in my direction so the adults could see my face turn green. Jisung was on his feet now, and his tear-stained face flushed brightly as soon as all of us realized he’d used the nickname “Deanette” to her face. Jisung bowed his head for a second and then glanced down at Jeongin and me.

He added, “Y-you can’t hurt us, ma’am, it’s against your code of conduct.”

“‘Deanette?’ Is that what the kids are calling me these days?” she chuckled, walking around her desk and sitting on top of it. She picked up her name tag standee and ran her long, grey fingers along its sharp edge. We were all shocked that she had ignored Jisung’s last note; I could just tell by the look on Jisung and Jeongin’s faces.

“Doctor,” Mr. Jeon said in a low tone of voice. “You’ve revealed your name?”  
  
“Erase their memories while we have the Arm out. They are too emotional.” She traced little circles in the air with her finger to signal him to turn the machine on. The Arm, as she called it, whizzed into life, some of the buttons on the side turning green. My mouth salivated and I felt very faint. I sprang out of my chair and whipped my head around in search of a trash can, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. There was one right by the door. I tripped over Jeongin’s feet on my way to it, and then Mr. Jeon cornered me.

“Erase our memories?” Jeongin argued behind me, and I heard the noise of him standing up. Mr. Jeon stared down at me with the vein in his forehead popping out. It was all I could look at for what felt like minutes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked me. Deanette said something to Jeongin and Jisung that I frankly couldn’t hear, whether it was important or not, because I was afraid that if I vomited on Mr. Jeon I’d never see the light of day again. But it was too late because he was blocking the trash can and I was a nervous wreck, coated in a sheen of sweat and shaking like a rattlesnake. I let it pour out, no longer capable of containing my fear.

When my senses came to, Deanette said, “Mr. Jeon, feel free to clean yourself up. I will take it from here.” I squatted down on the floor as she spoke, trying to make myself as small as possible so Mr. Jeon couldn’t do anything to me. “ _Hyunjin, get in the chair_.”

I stood up and backed up against the wall. Jisung and Jeongin were frightened into sitting back down, but I stood there, continually whispering, “What the fuck are you gonna do to me?” I wasn’t sure if she heard and chose to ignore it or if she truly couldn’t pick up what I was saying.

“Watch your language, Hwang…”

The next few moments blurred past in the context of three seconds. Mr. Hwang dragged me out of the corner, I threw up a little more in my mouth, I was slammed down into that repulsive, dreaded chair the adults told me to sit in earlier, and the Arm drew nearer to my neck. Jeongin and Jisung were helpless, but so would I be were it either of them in this very chair. I shut my eyes as the cold device contacted my neck, and from then on, I felt nothing. Even my eyes lost their ability to see.

-

“[another one bites the dust](https://youtu.be/uFNK-9A2VRo)” - queen


	13. build me up buttercup

I’d been feigning illness for a week now and my mother was pissed.

Pissed that she had to take care of me, pissed that her migraines weren’t getting any better, pissed that my dad hadn’t come up with the rent money just yet. But she wasn’t the only angry Hwang in Apartment 42; I was pissed at myself for being so weak, so cowardly, so frightened. What could possibly be wrong with me this late in the game? It was pathetic for a _senior_ to force his sickly mother to nurse him back to health—which he didn’t even need in the first place—after _one_ traumatic experience. As much as I regretted holing myself up, I couldn’t find the courage to end the behavior. The whole ordeal really ate away at my confidence.

“Get up, Hyunjin,” she snapped at me one morning. Her voice was bitter, as well as her expression and the humid May air around us. I didn’t want to move an inch but as the days crawled by, I felt increasingly guiltier for making her deal with me, so I obeyed. “I’m taking you to a clinic. You don’t have any more absence slots, so you’re going back to school tomorrow.”

I rolled out of the rut in my dented mattress and squeezed my eyes shut, squinting as my mom ripped my curtains open. “Please don’t make me go, Mom. _Please_.”

“For the last time: _you’re. Not. Dropping. Out._ I would have known by now if you were being harrassed. Now get dressed. It’s rude to be late to an appointment.” My begging was futile.

I couldn’t bear the thought of walking through those vast grey hallways one more day. School would be over in a couple of weeks anyway, so what was wrong with finishing a little early? The only thing holding me back was that my parents agreed _not_ to sign my resignation papers, and I had no other option than to beg them until they wanted to assault me with the closest sharp object. But evidently my pestering wasn’t working.

Attending Seoul Independent for so long—even though the “Mechanize Me” program had only recently been installed—made me more ambitious as a person, which I am thankful for, but becoming so had cost me the highest expense I could imagine. My poise, my humor, and my health were so corroded by now, they wouldn’t be recognizable if they were tactile objects. So I brainstormed during the entire car ride to the clinic. How could I manage one last escape?

Right when my mind carried me to the darkest place it could—genuine contemplation of suicide—my mother startled me into awareness by parking her car outside of a brick building, and my face went red because it seemed as though she had “caught” me. She was staring at me with a weird type of glimmer in her eye, like her dormant migraine had become a visible parasite that infested her head and it was threatening contagion. I blinked back at her blank expression and, wordlessly, she shook her head as if to say, “Don’t embarrass me.”

We checked in at the front desk and waited only five or six minutes before a curvy foreign nurse called for me. She sounded riveting and meaningful, like Dongsun whenever he spoke in English.

“I’m just going to take your height, weight, and blood pressure before the doctor stops in.” She was reserved, which was good for my mother and me because neither of us were in a talkative mood. The woman noted that I was underweight, even though I thought I regained all the weight I expelled, and that my blood pressure was high. My mother’s tense face loosened up as she learned how serious I was about not feeling well—but deep down, I believed a breath of fresh air and a visit with my friends would help.

The doctor came in five or six minutes after the preliminary procedures, and she explained that I was showing symptoms of an anxiety disorder. I gave my mother a nudging look that reminded her to tell the doctor about my constant throwing up, and when I added that it wasn’t so constant anymore, the doctor just nodded her head and reiterated her diagnosis. She gave me a prescription and sent us on our merry way. When we picked them up on the way home, everything was hazy. To this day I don’t know if it was because I finally had an excuse for being so pathetic or if it was because I was so preoccupied with thoughts of egress.

“Hyunjin,” my mother hummed with her eyes closed as we sat in the car in front of our apartment complex.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for being so hard on you this week,” she told me softly, opening her eyes—the evil glimmer I had seen there before was gone. “I had a hard time getting out of bed today, too. But I hope these pills help you as much as mine help me.” She tapped her temple, implying her new migraine medication was indeed effective.

Funny how I only acknowledged she had migraines when they took their physical toll on her. I wondered if she didn’t take my anxiety seriously because she had never seen it roaring like my friends had, and so I accepted the little orange canister of pills from her hand, viewing my mother in a new light.

“Thanks,” I said, holding onto the pills as though their container was my mom’s hand. “Sorry for not cooperating.”

“Well, now we know why,” my mom smiled, but I could tell it was forced. “You know, anxiety runs in my side of the family. When I found out I had chronic migraines, I thought my head was going to explode, so I cried and cried. But mine dwindled away by the time I was twenty-two.”

“That’s…heavy. I didn’t know.” I looked down at my lap even though she was trying to be lighthearted. We both dragged ourselves out of the vehicle and it felt as though a toxic gas cloud puffed out of existence the moment we opened our car doors. My mother explained that I did still need to go to school the next day, but she gave me a note to turn into the office that would inform the nurse of my diagnosis. I nearly started to cry the second she reminded me that school existed.

“I’m telling you I can’t go back there.” Even with my eyes wide open I envisaged that metal arm gliding toward my neck. _Erase their memories while we have the Arm out_.

“What is it, Hyunjin?” my mother asked, but I only choked up, trying to find words to describe my fault.

“I can’t say,” I came up with after a full thirty-seconds’ worth of stuttering. “But it made me get sick all those times and I can’t go deal with Dr. Min tomorrow.”

“You know her name?” she asked me. “Your father and I were told Dr. Min kept her name a secret from the student body.”

“She did, and then she told this dude to ‘wipe our memories,’ and obviously it didn’t work, but—”

“You sound like you’re describing a fever dream.”

“Mom!” I widened my eyes at the short woman and she flinched, immediately regretting interrupting me, though honestly I probably felt more regret for raising my voice at her. “Jisung, Jeongin, and I got in trouble and we were sent to the office, and the punishment was supposed to be some sort of muscle stimulation. Dr. Min was going to _hurt_ us.” That was the simplest way I could have put it without sounding completely off my rocker.

“Let’s just go inside,” my mother sighed, shaking her head at my remark. “Don’t rile yourself up. You need to rest for tomorrow.”

I watched as she went ahead of me and it took a few more seconds for me to move my own leaden legs and go inside as well. My mind was a storm of grey clouds and steaming hot rain. Based off her response, I would not make any more progress asking to drop out.

At this point, I would have to do it myself. Get the papers, forge the signatures, and never step inside that hellhole ever again. I had a cousin in the area who I could visit while my parents thought I was at school. Finally, everything was coming together!

This was my last chance to leave Seoul Independent. I patted my pockets for my phone and realized I didn’t even bring it to the clinic; so when I reached my bedroom, I went straight for the device that was face-down on my bedside table. I had seven texts from the nonagon groupchat, but I disregarded them for the moment and looked for the contact belonging to that cousin of mine. At last, “Lee Ryujin.”

 **Me, 10:59 //** Hey, hru? I have a question.

Ryujin didn’t answer my text until around two o’clock. I told her I wanted to shadow her somehow and she could not let anybody know, and she was on board even though she didn’t know why. She wouldn’t want to know why, and I knew that.

We set it up: the next morning, Ryujin would pick me up and drive me to her school, and I would have to fill in a visitor’s form and wear a sticker with my name on it and that was all. I was amazed at how simple the system of visiting was and that we could do it within twenty-four hours, but I had no time to fantasize about how nice public school would be in comparison to the academy that ruined my life, so I carried on with my day. I FaceTimed Seungmin without filling him in on my plan and slept like a butterfly during its final day in the cocoon, waiting to be reborn.

The morning was a blur. I told my parents Felix would be picking me up so I had an excuse to leave a little bit later than normal, and they were gone by the time Ryujin’s car appeared outside the complex. She had parked at the apartment next to mine but I found her and jogged to her, panting heavily as though I’d completed a triathlon. She looked at me weirdly when she saw my blazer.

“You’re overdressed,” she noted, rolling the windows down as I climbed into the vehicle.

“Sorry, it’s my uniform,” I shrugged. “Will anyone care?”

“If anything, they’ll appreciate it. No one at my school follows the dress code.”

“What’s your dress code?” I asked, inspecting Ryujin’s pleated skirt and graphic T-shirt quickly so she wouldn’t notice.

“Pretty much high socks, khaki bottoms, and a shirt with a cola,” she rolled her eyes, snaking the car between buildings in the complex in order to find her way out. We were quickly on the main road that’s visible from my balcony. “But most of our teachers are so under-qualified, they don’t even wear ties.”

“So what _do_ they wear?” I asked, scoffing. “Jeans?”

“No, more like business casual. But _really_ casual.”

For the rest of the car ride, which seemed to fly by, we carried out a smooth conversation that prepared me for the day. She explained that her classes were mostly electives since she was a senior, and her best friend was in all of them, so I’d get to see her and her friend’s true colors. It was certainly something to look forward to, though something in me wanted to take Ryujin to my own school and introduce her to the nonagon to return the favor. Then I remembered how traumatizing my school was, so I changed the setting to Felix’s cramped little bedroom where we had so many good times.

Once we got inside, Ryujin took me to her locker where she had to drop off her tennis racket and then we went to her first class: AP Korean. I introduced myself to her professor-like teacher, Mrs. Park, and she was nicer than she looked. There was nothing special about AP Korean—in fact, it reminded me of my own Korean class. I also noticed students texting under their desks while the teacher wasn’t looking, but I thought it would be rude of me to do the same so I didn’t.

“What do you think so far?” Ryujin would ask me periodically throughout the day. I would always tell her I was nervous because, well, I was. I was afraid I’d break some unspoken rule just because that was how things worked at Seoul Independent. The student handbook was constantly edited without the student body’s knowledge, and I suppose that could have been part of why my friends and I got in trouble so much. But no matter what I did, no one looked at me funny, except for a couple of teachers when complimenting my attire.

Finally, at lunch period, Ryujin and I sat down at a hightop table that sat four people. She explained that her best friend had an appointment that morning and that was why I didn’t get to meet her, but she would be coming in late and would sit with us to eat in only a couple of minutes. When she finally appeared, I nearly dropped my pineapple ring.

She gasped when she saw me, but not because I was extraordinary; rather, it was an I’m-so-excited-to-finally-meet-you kind of deal. “Hey! Are you Hyunjin?”

“I am,” I mumbled, my eyes as wide as the pineapple rings on my tray. Ryujin laughed at my facial expression, but Jaehwa couldn’t have known I looked any different than normal, so she continued getting herself situated. She had packed a lunch.

“Hyunjin, this is Jaehwa,” Ryujin said. I hardly heard her introduction because I was so engrossed in this girl’s beauty. The last time I hung out with a girl had to have been months or years ago, so maybe she wasn’t anything to anyone; but in my eyes, this Jaehwa figure was a crisp flower standing in a field of grass. She made the plain into a meadow: long black stem that curled at the bottom. Two bay colored petals that drew me to her like a honey to a bee. Too bad she was sitting across from me.

Her nails were terracotta brown and I watched closely as she opened up her lunchbox, careful to use her fingertips and not her acrylics. She and Ryujin were immediately engaged in conversation, and I was happy to sit and watch until Jaehwa looked me in the eye as if she was expecting an answer.

“Hmm?”

“You’re funny,” she grinned, her penciled eyebrows raised in anticipation of my response. Heat flashed through my face and I looked at Ryujin alertedly. They both erupted in a spell of laughter, nodding their heads at each other.

“Check your phone,” Ryujin told me, so I did, hoping it would offer some type of explanation. I had a text message from her.

 **Lee Ryujin, 11:32 //** She knows you’re staring at her :))))

 **Me //** Well fuck

 **Lee Ryujin //** Lighten up bud. I’ll give her your #

 **Me //** …

 **Lee Ryujin //** But only if you lighten up lol

I shut my phone off and looked as far away from the girls as I could, trying to conceal the smile that was forming on my face. I finally looked back, and thankfully Jaehwa was sifting through her backpack. Ryujin looked me in the eye and mouthed the words, “Do we have a deal?” to which I just nodded.

Ryujin was telling the truth when she told me her best friend was in all of her classes. That was my happiest Monday in months.

-

“[troubled times](https://youtu.be/9cVJr3eQfXc)” - green day


End file.
